I think that a lot of this is a problem with jargon and explanation rather than with the concepts themselves. For a programmer the difference between abstract

I think that a lot of this is a problem with jargon and explanation rather than with the concepts themselves. For a programmer the difference between abstract and concrete is really just the difference between 'something I don't yet see why I would need to use it' and 'something you've given me a good example for'. If you want to explain monads to a software developer, call it a 'design pattern that lets you chain actions on wrapped values' rather than "an endofunctor, together with two natural transformations".