A lot of "pursuits have value outside of money"; e.g., for some years I pursued violin.
But if a person is being paid to do research in mathematics, then usually in some sense commonly the people paying will want to know if the work is or will soon become useful. In fact, there was the David Report that severely criticized Federally funded math research that seemed to have no intended connection with applications. The theme of that criticism was if the math is being pursued just as art, then fund it like art.
I was giving my personal opinion and not trying to change the opinion of anyone else. Read my other responses here.
A lot of "pursuits have value outside of money"; e.g., for some years I pursued violin.
But if a person is being paid to do research in mathematics, then usually in some sense commonly the people paying will want to know if the work is or will soon become useful. In fact, there was the David Report that severely criticized Federally funded math research that seemed to have no intended connection with applications. The theme of that criticism was if the math is being pursued just as art, then fund it like art.
I was giving my personal opinion and not trying to change the opinion of anyone else. Read my other responses here.