This is sadly the case with most public good research. Just look at the amount of money that's available for things like police transparency research, or advertisement-less journalism. Even if you do great work in these sorts of fields, there's usually very little to personally gain from it.
There is a big gap between Observations and Solutions.
Just like the resources, knowledge and skills required to detect Cancer is very different from what is required to treat it, which is very different from what is required to cure it.
The healthy way to go about it involves understanding the gaps(usually from someone/group with experience) and then picking an issue.
"Optimize for a simplistic world Or satisfice for a realistic one"
I think it's a variant of P!=NP. Solution is not reducible to verification.
Employees who can tell that a problem exists, aren't necessarily as profitable as employees who can resolve that problem. Or in some cases, they may be more profitable. Either way, it is not an identical task.
A person who can identify fraud is very useful in an accounting firm. Not so much in an engineering firm.
Just my attempt at interpreting the downvoted comment.
