I think it’s pretty safe to assume this limitation/problem affects almost nobody else, so not really relevant for most people.

Also: how do you run running Firefox and Chrome? Do you download and build the whole chain of dependencies and build tools needed to build and run those? And if so, why?

I actually use firefox or chrome so that's a non-issue. Ghc is a dependency not the main app,therein lies my complaint. Depending on the use case I might complile some applications and by no means was I implying others should build from source as well.

It's just that I have run into situations where a Haskell app pulls ghc and that needs a source build. If I ever build something in Haskell then there is a chance others might go through that as well.

I never had that problem with any other language (even a heavy weight lan like java).

I use lots of versions of GHC across several architectures, and can't remember the last time I compiled GHC. I think you must be doing it wrong. It's not without its flaws, but `stack` can do a lot of the work for you too.

On some platforms that build from source haskell apps pull ghc as a dependency and build it from source as well. I try to avoid those apps but it is getting harder.

You can't compile GHC unless you already have a GHC, so why don't you just use the one you have?

You can use prebuilt binaries of ghc. If you don't need the bleeding edge builds.