Yes. It matters how they are now. It matters what problems there are with that state and what we can do to change them. It matters what's worked before and why and in what context, because it's a source of information we can use to inform our decisions. If you're going to talk to me like you think I'm a baby, I ask you to at least say something vaguely useful, instead of prattling about "realism" that makes no substantive claims except that every facet of our current reality is inevitable. As someone who makes money by doing work in the current world, I would like for fewer decisions to be made by people who hold capital instead of doing work, and think there are concrete steps we could take to rescue the important human endeavor of research from the influence of such people, not the least of which being restructuring how governments fund such institutions, prioritizing their independence rather than their hijacked function as yet another ill-conceived social mobility hack (actual social mobility comes from removing obstacles, not creating new ones and then conditionally subsidizing them)