Yes, that's correct. I've done research in pure math, but left after the postdoc level. I enjoyed it for its artistic sake but it's not something that gives anything practical. Most pure mathematicians don't ever work on practical problems either. They just teach and in return get to do their hyperspecialized research. It's done for its own sake. (Some pure math eventually ends up having applications but it's rarer and rarer and it wasn't very common to begin with. Like applications to crypto or whatever, but that was always a tiny slice to begin with.)