I would argue yes. For any puny human, figuring out the world is the big scheme of things. For any intelligent species, figuring out our place in the world is beyond valuable. We aren't exactly there yet!
You can say all learning is futile, and that we live like ants and die. But we're curious ants. I think the human need to try to understand runs deep. Even in Genesis, right at the start of that interesting old book, the naming of animals is discussed. That Adam character wasn't much of a taxonomist, but the fact that taking steps to understand nature had to be part of the story that early in the text says a lot about what mattered even to ancient shepherd cultures.. People can choose to be ignorant and shut down, or they can choose to learn. I am especially interested in seeing groups of fish and trying to understand why they are as they are. Others with different skills have been able to work with these questions and identify species key to ecologies, or species that produce medicines we can use (you can't make antibiotics without know which species of fungus can be used). We could live a full long lives believing the sun revolved around a flat earth, that we were the reincarnation of Sasquatches, or that everything happens for a conscious reason. Why not? But all those curious people finding new things - their work is really stimulating mentally. I'll take the questions, not the answers. You're right though - in the end it doesn't matter to me.
So if a person decides to dedicate their lives to understanding life, and in trying to decipher the complex web of life, the history of life, the processes of evolution or even some tiny project like why a fish is the colour it is, or why its ear has become a means of breathing - that info can be really interesting. In the big scheme of things it can lead to everything from science that helps us live better and longer to a clear understanding of the meaning of life, if you think about it.
We are contradictory. @itiwhetu , you talked about Darwin collecting bird specimens as something foolish on a forum dedicated to collecting tiny fishes and keeping them alive in boxes. Uh huh. One of the problems breeders of fish can have is misidentified species can be accidentally crossed. There are species that look very alike but have genetic differences we can't eyeball, and they produce sterile mules within a generation or two. When taxonomists have done DNA analysis of them they've realized why this was happening, and maybe that obscure info can help people like us enjoy these things, since we care about fish enough to spend all this time online...
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