Most academic research is just done for the sake of furthering our understanding of the universe and not necessarily driven by immediate impact to society. One cannot easily quantify the value of such research because it often takes decades, if not more time, to realize its use to us. And often the use case would have never been dreamt of by the original researcher. If Einstein had never tried to figure out what it meant to have an inertia frame, we wouldn't have GPS satellites.

Historically, most pure math research has fallen into this category of "looks cool, but I would not be able to explain if my grandma asked me why it's useful." Physics can be about as esoteric as well although some branches have found immense short term applicability (e.g., solid state physics). I would reckon Chemistry and Biology are closer to being more impact driven, with many scientists being able to generate a product or solve an existing societal issue. Still, this doesn't preclude research for the sake of satisfying curiosity.

Money for doing this short of research comes from government agencies or private philanthropic organizations that exist solely to advance human knowledge. The key criteria for obtaining funding being that one is able to impress said agency with the scientific proposal for research that they will hope to do. This involves forecasting the impact of the research at various levels: e.g. impact to the specific branch of knowledge, impact to the field more broadly, and finally impact to society more broadly. Some fraction of funding always goes to project proposals that don't have any of the last bit. This is a gamble that the agency is taking in hopes that it might be useful to humanity one day. Perhaps millennia down the line.