On the PR, David Feuer suggests that the type may have some utility depending on whether the monad-of-no-return proposal is accepted (and also on whether DerivingVia is accepted, but this one seems more sure). If Monad keeps return as a typeclass method, then DerivingVia could be used to produce an Applicative instance from a Monad instance. If anyone knows the status of this proposal, that could be helpful. This aside, all indication of approval or disapproval of this proposal are welcome. Also, I'd really love to know if anyone is even using this type.
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-Andrew Thaddeus Martin