The world is often structured to heavily advantage highly social individuals. You're right that being less social or even asocial can bear a large accumulative cost.
Still, many of us live in our ways because we've followed our feelings and sensations. Trying to mold to the ways of interaction and time allocation according to the norms of a population that feels alien is wasteful. Instead, I spend my life exploring into less socially determined ways of being that seem a more functional and thoughtful in my experience. They're customized to me and feel great.
In fact, frequently some of my more social friends express a sense of relief and comfort when spending time with me. It feels more emotionally clean, whole, and loving to them. They love it but the population didn't teach them how to be this way and they also don't know how to navigate the divide to try living in this way more broadly. They appear to recognize it's unhealthy but also be tied to and habituated to the way of things so that psychologically bridging is too great an effort.
Being an introvert is definitely no easy way out. Extroverts tell me there's something wrong with me in lots of little ways and have excluded me regularly from the little clubs that form which has reduced my career trajectory and the rewards I receive from society (though I have still become greatly rewarded). Most concretely, I suspect that I would have had much more capital funding available for my passion projects if I had been more sociable. I would also suggest that the world would be a better place to live if I had received more funding but that's highly speculative.