I think it's because OP never had the xp of working in industry and think grass is greener on the other side. I also made the switch from consumer web to academ

I think it's because OP never had the xp of working in industry and think grass is greener on the other side. I also made the switch from consumer web to academia. However I understand from his perspective which is from someone who wants stay on research, go from PhD to post-doc to to fellow to principal investigator to whatever. Competition is intense and everyone along the way is selected for people who are so interested in their work that they might be very unbalanced in other area's. It's all about trade-off's. I personally would rather trade for working on things that I find interesting and technical than A/B testing. But I can understand someone who is tired of academia and wants to live in the "real world" for a change. I can also understand people who are very happy doing things that they think are very engaging/fun/important in consumer web and respect that.