Yes, CRUD pays. Being able to make more CRUD in less time (and/or CRUD that is better performing or more maintainable, etc...) is a valuable skill.

But it's boring. And more, it's just not impressive in the same way that, say, qemu/kvm is (or Mesa, or Linux, or llvm, etc...) That stuff is hard, and fun, and interesting in a way that CRUD will never be. So it has value too, and IMHO it's entirely reasonable to celebrate its practitioners even if they don't make as much money as CRUD jockeys like Zuckerberg do.