[akra]

Maybe so. But it benefits from the larger ecosystem that it can piggyback onto. This is often important to people selecting a language bound by constraints in their product, company, etc and can't be dismissed.

.NET/JIT/GC improvements, improvements to core API's, enterprise libraries/SDK's, etc. C#'s improvements do tend to flow into F#, if not from a language/syntax perspective from an ecosystem perspective. An upgrade of .NET version for example also benefits a F# developer greatly even if no work is done on the language at all for example. A performance improvement in say ASP.NET Core benefits many of the F# web frameworks too. A language/tool is more than just its syntax - you need to learn the libraries, package management, build tools, etc as well and be confident of their long term support/improvement. All dimensions are important.

At this stage F# does have more broader technology support and interoperability as a result of this "second class" status. Whether this matters depends on the use case, company, and engineering resources at hand. Being second class may be more feasible for a language that can ride the tail wind may be better than standing on its own two feet? Right now in my context personally I could use F# for my company's apps and not hit too many blockers, I probably couldn't use OcAML given the technologies we use day to day.