You misunderstand their intentions.

“I’ve already got the prize. The prize is the pleasure of finding things out, the kick in the discovery, the observation that other people use it - those are the real things, the honors are unreal to me.” -Richard Feynman

This assumes that there is no financial intent in the work. My favorite example of this is that many thousands of Google's engineers used an app (Homebrew I think), but Google wouldn't hire him, thus letting him share in wealth partially created by his life's work.

Did Richard Feynman struggle to pay rent?

Wasn't his work funded by the government?