There's only one scientist in the world and we have to collectively decide what she focuses on... Is that how it works?
I prefer to think of the scientists working on solving balding as Larry David or George Constanza-types. Bitter about their hair loss, kept going by the promise of a better life in the future through hair.
There's a baldness research team at the institute I work at. The head of the lab looks like a talk show host from the 1980s, and his work is derided by other labs. But he brings in more external funding than any other group, I don't think of him as a lonely crusader.
Because we as a species can multi-task. Many billions of dollars are spent on cancer research every year by the NIH alone. Imagine if we did all our research as a species in series as opposed to in parallel.
Because we don't know how we will discover new things.
Because demand for popular things can drive research into important things.
Because there's no reason not to.
Sure, why not run a marathon instead of taking a first step? There are thousands of steps in a marathon, it's literally thousands of times better, so why not do it instead?