You get social rewards like titles, getting into vicious personal arguments over personal things, and being able to reject younger researchers’ work in peer review if it would disprove yours.

Can’t displace Chomsky as a famous linguist if he writes a letter to everyone’s dissertation committee if they criticize him.

Academic research is valuable, as is the research done by commercial entities. They're really not comparable in their intent though, and that's a good thing.

It's not an assumption, it was in the example I responded to:

> When he was asked what the device would cost, he cheerily replied "whatever the market will bear."

I also do not need to assume that companies undertaking research are doing it for profit as that is their reason for being companies, and even in the case of research being not directly undertaken for profit, that research - if useful - will go into drugs that are then sold with the intention of making a profit. Not solely, whether cynically or altruistically, the hope will be that the drug is effective.