[icrbow]

For practical purposes you don't have to know what the monad "is". You need some good practical examples how to wield them.

Knowing some prehistory about doesn't affect usage. And metaphors are very tricky and personal.

The personal part is where the "monad tutorials" fall flat. They assume shared context which may or not may not be actually shared by a random reader on the internet. Yes, some monads are really about "wrapping a value" or whatever.

Reading a post using this metaphor when you want such a wrapping and/or deal with chaining wrappers regularly can bootstrap your understanding in no time. But if you're reading "wrapper"-flavored tutorial while dealing with "pipes" then the spell breaks, you end up confused, and another one joins the "monads are uncomprehensible" group.

Teaching is hard enough. Writing good tutorials is even harder. Successfully giving an universally good drive-by explanation is next to zero probability.

I suspect this is a knowledge variant of "XY problem" and you have to establish more context before answering.

And another problem that "what is a monad" is already a meme. Everyone has the burning desire to ask it, but usually there's no practical need for the answer. Without that confusion ensues. Or, even worse, a false understanding gets locked in and starts to proliferate, sustaining the memetic chain reaction.