For most of the common template instantiations, the standard runtime's shared library provides you with deduped versions that are likely already in memory, and

For most of the common template instantiations, the standard runtime's shared library provides you with deduped versions that are likely already in memory, and most linkers are smart enough to make that dynamic linking very efficient. True, for embedded systems this can still be a painful waste... But I'd argue if that is the case, you probably should be very explicit about using/not using STL libraries.