The problem with monads is that they’re a term from abstract algebra. Haskell’s documentation talks about them from that perspective (including monad laws), which makes them quite natural for anyone who’s studied some abstract algebra in university.

Unfortunately, most programmers trying to learn Haskell have not taken any abstract algebra courses, so these definitions and laws are deemed insufficient. Regular people want to know the exact nature of a thing — not just a list of mathematical properties that hold — and so they insist that there must be something more. But there’s nothing there!

Weirdly once i stopped trying to understand what a monad was, i had no problem using them.

The reason that there are so many tutorials and analogies is because monads are relatively easy to understand, but unfamiliar, and they allow you to do a bunch of math (which you don’t have to do). Not hard enough to cause Haskell programmers any problems.

Surely people never overcomplicate simple things, right?

:)