Bears are extremely large and powerful animals, so it seems like they would be fairly useful to have around at least for protection, if not hunting. In addition manny bear’s diets consist of largely plants, so they wouldn’t be that much harder to feed than other large mammals like ox.
If we took the time and effort to domesticate cats and dogs, why not bears?
I got a Bachelors of Science in Animal Science.
Animals have a variety of requirements to be domesticated. Some major ones:
They have to be herd animals because they are easy to maintain and to have a leader of the pack. A leader of the pack is needed because humans can take the place of the alpha and manage them.
Short generation time allows us to breed them effectively. Cattle have a couple year generation time. Swine have ~9 month generation time. Chickens are a few months. Bears vary, but are ~5 years.
For food, they are technically carnivores. They can eat other things, but they are technically carnivores and do best when eating meat. That requires raising other livestock to feed them, which is resource intensive. This was unrealistic when most animals were domesticated. Even in today's world, it isn't very realistic and certainly not efficient.
Bears are dangerous. They are hard to manage. They are not a safe animal to domesticate.
Not many animals have or can be domesticated. Bears don't fit any of the criteria.