Your argument seems to be that "Real World Haskell" uses obscure features that I and many others don't understand, thus Haskell is complex. This is true if it is (a) impossible to write "Real World" Haskell without using these features and (b) that these features are truly complex and not just unfamiliar.

An alternative hypothesis to (a) is that Real World problems can be solved by simple Haskell, but more sophisticate Haskell features pay their way often enough that skilled practitioners choose to use them nearly always. I don't know if I completely buy this, but I also don't know that I completely buy that there aren't examples of Real World Haskell that are simple.

Of course (b) is easy to criticize and painful to do so since it'll ultimately be this indefensible argument of "if only you knew what I know then you'd agree with me" which I think is stupid. Unfamiliarity is a complexity since it forces investment on all that would learn it---languages which avoid unfamiliarity are faster and more valuable tools for avoiding forcing that investment.

The only counterargument is a global one: if these techniques _are_ worth the investment then they will over time have an increasingly large impact on the culture of programming at large. Already this is coming true with first class functions, immutable data, preference for stronger typing, option/maybe types. Your personal investment into learning further ideas may be worth it if they pay out over a longer time period either by preparing you for where things are going (speculative) or by diversifying your thought process immediately (less speculative).

So you get people encouraging folks to learn Haskell because they personally have made the judgement that learning these things is great. If you're unconvinced that's a totally reasonable position to take. OTOH, learning new things can be fun and there's at least a small hill of anecdotal evidence that these things can pay their way at times.

> I doubt the average JS user knows how V8 optimizes execution of code, or whatever. That's what your insistent complaints about type theory amounts to: [...] Only a couple of people working on the compiler [use type theory].

> Wait. Are you telling me now is that writing a BasicAuth implementation in a "simple library that doesn't require you to have a PhD in type theory" is on the same level of complexity as knowing the inner workings of an advanced Javascript VM?

I rest my case. You're not arguing in good faith here, although you seemed to be doing a pretty good job at times. I'm saying that knowing enough to be able to add big new features to the Haskell compiler, like the computer scientists who drive GHC development, is similar to knowing how V8 works. :)