Static linking essentially freezes not only the ABI to the kernel, but many implementation details of the linked libraries as well. Including, for example, how

Static linking essentially freezes not only the ABI to the kernel, but many implementation details of the linked libraries as well. Including, for example, how library client code talks to daemons, or formats of files directly read in by the libraries. The timezone configuration would be one instance, or things related to NSS. It's really not viable in a lot of cases, unless you like rebuilding (or at least relinking) with every system software update. And then there's of course the memory savings. macOS and iOS for example have giant "shared caches" which are mapped into all processes and comprise of all the system libraries. (Other OSs often do this on the individual shared library level.) With static linking, you'd instead have many copies of lots of potentially-but-not-necessarily identical library code pages in DRAM.