Look if they want funding for their for profit venture they should just ask for your credit card number then go spend on AWS where the hardware is modern and the energy is efficiently used. But if they were upfront and asked directly for peoples hard earned money in exchange for nothing every sane human would say no, so there's this racket called boinc where they trick you into giving them your money indirectly and they laugh at you. You get a gold star if they find something with your "contribution". But they get a billion dollars for finding the next lucrative drug

It’s a simple any easy way to donate which you can start and stop and any time without handing over any financial details. You could, for example just decide to crank it up when your solar panels are generating an excess and the export rate is low.

This isn't pharmaceutical research.

protein folding simulation is to find drug targets

not all (or even most) of them are profit ventures, like at all. There are some along those lines.

I do Asteroids at home, they need help figuring out the shape and size of asteroids. The data is published for public use.

Link

https://asteroidsathome.net/boinc/

It's research. I benefit from it, you do too.

It's the responsibility of the society to do research and just because some capitalism based entities also do this and also benefit from this doesn't matter.

Start being less 'sane' if this holds you back formulating your own opinion or actions making society better ...

not all research benefits society and what does usually benefits the wealthy, which boinc users almost certainly aren't. The wealthy expect a return on an investment

Strong statement without any source or explanation.

I don't buy that.

The insistence in both of your comments that the people at Boinc are not only taking advantage of people but "laugh[ing] at them" is odd. Why must your boogeyman be as unlikeable as possible?

Well touché yes the truth is somewhere in the middle

"because you are cheap" What a weird take.

Expecting a monetary benefit from a BOINC project is the weird take.