You are wrong if you consider academic incentives, funding, human nature(reproduction/survival) and capitalism.

It would be fantastic if university and science was like "here is 100M$, play around and develop some 'understanding'". However the reality is that human societies are hierarchical and currently capitalistic which implies value creation and status building.

1) the funding bodies/agencies need proof of value that you're using the resources meaningfully to be able to assign resources

2) Humans are status seeking, power seeking, resource seeking and sexual reproduction seeking. If you hold a lot of power and make decisions, you have more of all of the above.