As you said, there are pros and cons to both kinds of research.

For academia, the work you do and the hours you spend researching has chances of completely changing the world, depending on the subject of the research. However, there is no guarantee that all those hours spent mean the research and project will be a success. There is a significant chance for failure and while it may help you and your team learn a boat load of new knowledge that may or may not help you in future progress, as far as the (scientific) world is concerned, all that time was wasted as there has been no progress. That may sound bad, but when this kind of research is the kind that finds cures to previously incurable diseases or revolutionizes wound treatment or drastically improves the quality of life of the human race as a whole, it might be worth failing a few times to see something succeed and have your work change the world.

For industry, the work you do and hours you spend researching has the chance of impacting a smaller community. Odds are it won’t be world changing research, but if it results in a product that helps amputees live a much easier life through a breakthrough advancement in prosthetics, then it is all worth it because it can help change their world and that means so much. This kind of research is also more likely to be successful because the end goals are generally more realistic. It may not lead to the cure to cancer, but if I can help change someone’s life for the better immediately, then it’s worth leaving that honor to someone else.