While you're technically right, it's only in the same sense that any TC language can do anything any other TC language can -- you can theoretically always delay

While you're technically right, it's only in the same sense that any TC language can do anything any other TC language can -- you can theoretically always delay any computation behind a lambda, but the ergonomics have wide-ranging consequences. You also don't get any memoization that way -- without further runtime support. There was a good Reddit thread recently where a lot of experts weighed in: https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/wpbs4z/what_things_would_be_awkward_to_do_in_a/ikhtng3/ https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/wpbs4z/what_things... I recommend reading the thread -- lot's of great stuff in there, but... TL;DR: It's a lot more complicated than it seems at first and it's far from obvious that strict-by-default is worth the cost.