Most researchers are not independent and don't have much choice where they publish. Also, prestige plays a huge role in academia. Getting in Nature is a big deal to them. That's one reason I really dislike academia. They are often playing games that are very far from genuine progress. It's all ladder climbing and groveling at their masters feet. Someone please disrupt academia.
I have worked both in academia and in the industry. Academia is heaven when compared to some of the serpentine performance evaluations in the industry. I have even seen people in the same team undermining each other's work because the top 2 in the group would earn a bonus.
The real merit of academia is that people can be alone in a corner doing one's work, if they choose to. Industry enforces socialisation, conformity to norms, and shmoozing.
Also, the track record of the academic world vis-a-vis disruption is impressive. The oldest western universities are around 900 years old.
That said, the article seems to be a fluff piece about a good but not groundbreaking paper. (Nature MI is not Nature, not by a long shot. It does not have any prestige, yet.)
> The real merit of academia is that people can be alone in a corner doing one's work, if they choose to. Industry enforces socialisation, conformity to norms, and shmoozing.
That's a bit dubious. If you don't network in the academia I doubt you can get far at all, while you can very well just comfortably do your job as a technical employee even if you are not really into networking (if you don't have further ambitions). Networking is absolutely essential to would-be professors or anybody who wants long-term stable employment in the academia, and the competition is much fiercer.
