The problem of backward compatibility have been the main obstacle against adopting Functor f => (Pointed f =>?) => Applicative f => Monad f. This proposition is to add following default instances[1]: default fmap :: Applicative f => (a -> b) -> f a -> f b f `fmap` m = pure f <*> m default pure :: Monad f => a -> f a pure = return default (<*>) :: Monad f => f (a -> b) -> f a -> f b (<*>) = liftM2 ($) The proposition is intended as step towards implementing whole hierarchy of Functor f => (Pointed f =>?) => Applicative f => Monad f[2] Discussion period: 2 weeks Regards [1] It's using DefaultSuperclassInstances extentions: http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/DefaultSuperclassInstances [2] Trivial implementation is shown here: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.libraries/16196 I believe that in such case the Pointed instance comes at nearly zero cost.