Why so black and white? There are many incentives at play, and many ways to contribute to solving real world problems.

I’ve spent time in both academic research and industry.

Research is not supposed to be immediately applicable. The goal is to produce new knowledge - more importantly shared knowledge. Publishing is not a bad measure of that. Additionally, ability to secure grants provides incentive to focus on problems others want solved.

No incentive system is perfect, but I don’t really see how this is any different from any organization. And I don’t think it’s fair to judge an entire discipline by the negative examples.