In a sense, this is very anti-Marxism. The amount of work put into anything isn't necessarily linked to their value. I can spend my whole life digging holes and achieve nothing.

But the story makes me sad. While I don't feel too bad about humanity reducing its investment on anything related to Foucault, the author appears to be a capable and motivated individual. It would have been great if they could have found something that they like which is also useful for everybody. Win-win.