Thanks for the clarification. I think this makes more sense, but I think I need to push back a tad. It is a bit messier (for academia, I don't disagree for community/hobbyists)
In the US PhD system usually PhD students take classes during the first two years and this is often where they serve as teaching assistants too. But after quals (or whatever) you advance to PhD Candidate you no longer take classes and frequently your funding comes through grants or other areas (but may include teaching/assisting. Funding is always in flux...). For most of my time, and is common for most PhDs in my department, I've been on research. While still classified as 0.49 employee and 0.51 student, the work is identical despite categorization.
My point is that I would not generalize this notion. There's certainly very high variance, but I think it is less right than wrong. Sure, I do have other responsibilities like publishing, mentoring, and random bureaucratic administrative stuff, but this isn't exceptionally different from when I've interned or the 4 years I spent working prior to going to grad school.
Though I think something that is wild about this system (and generalizes outside academia), is that this completely flips when you graduate from PhD {Student,Candidate} to Professor. As a professor you have so much auxiliary responsibilities that most do not have time for research. You have to teach, do grant writing, there is a lot of department service (admins seem to increase this workload, not decrease...), and other stuff. It seems odd to train someone for many years and then put them in... a essentially a administrative or managerial role. I say this generalizes, because we do the same thing outside academia. You can usually only get promoted as an engineer (pick your term) for so long before you need to transition to management. Definitely I want technical managers, but that shouldn't prevent a path for advancement through technical capabilities. You spent all that time training and honing those skills, why abandon them? Why assume they transfer to the skills of management? (some do, but enough?). This is quite baffling to me and I don't know why we do this. In "academia" you can kinda avoid this by going to post-doc or a government labs, or even the private sector. But post-doc and private sector just delay this transition and government labs are hit or miss (but this is why people like working there and will often sacrifice salaries).
(The idea in academia is you then have full freedom once you're tenured. But it isn't like the pressures of "publish or perish" disappear, and it is hard to break habits. Plus, you'd be a real dick if you are sacrificing your PhD students' careers in pursuit of your own work. So the idealized belief is quite inaccurate. If anything, we want young researchers to be attempting riskier research)
TLDR: for graduate students, I disagree; but, for professors/hobbyists/undergrads/etc, I do agree
In the US PhD system usually PhD students take classes during the first two years and this is often where they serve as teaching assistants too. But after quals (or whatever) you advance to PhD Candidate you no longer take classes and frequently your funding comes through grants or other areas (but may include teaching/assisting. Funding is always in flux...). For most of my time, and is common for most PhDs in my department, I've been on research. While still classified as 0.49 employee and 0.51 student, the work is identical despite categorization.
My point is that I would not generalize this notion. There's certainly very high variance, but I think it is less right than wrong. Sure, I do have other responsibilities like publishing, mentoring, and random bureaucratic administrative stuff, but this isn't exceptionally different from when I've interned or the 4 years I spent working prior to going to grad school.
Though I think something that is wild about this system (and generalizes outside academia), is that this completely flips when you graduate from PhD {Student,Candidate} to Professor. As a professor you have so much auxiliary responsibilities that most do not have time for research. You have to teach, do grant writing, there is a lot of department service (admins seem to increase this workload, not decrease...), and other stuff. It seems odd to train someone for many years and then put them in... a essentially a administrative or managerial role. I say this generalizes, because we do the same thing outside academia. You can usually only get promoted as an engineer (pick your term) for so long before you need to transition to management. Definitely I want technical managers, but that shouldn't prevent a path for advancement through technical capabilities. You spent all that time training and honing those skills, why abandon them? Why assume they transfer to the skills of management? (some do, but enough?). This is quite baffling to me and I don't know why we do this. In "academia" you can kinda avoid this by going to post-doc or a government labs, or even the private sector. But post-doc and private sector just delay this transition and government labs are hit or miss (but this is why people like working there and will often sacrifice salaries).
(The idea in academia is you then have full freedom once you're tenured. But it isn't like the pressures of "publish or perish" disappear, and it is hard to break habits. Plus, you'd be a real dick if you are sacrificing your PhD students' careers in pursuit of your own work. So the idealized belief is quite inaccurate. If anything, we want young researchers to be attempting riskier research)
TLDR: for graduate students, I disagree; but, for professors/hobbyists/undergrads/etc, I do agree