> you study them to meet demand
nobody who has ever achieved notoriety in any intellectual field ever did it to "meet demand." if your goal is to be an interchangeable widget that produces value as part of a corporate machine that exists for the enrichment of your shareholders, you are certainly free to choose that path, but don't imagine that is the limit of human existence. also, don't be surprise when you are replaced by AI, because it is a superior widget.
The desire for novelty and to be first is demand. The publishing and grant writing. The whole funding and tenure apparatus. It's nothing but demand gradients.