The problem is that you are trying to understand them from an explanation, when the correct method is to code with them and feel them and get used to them.

The programming world is filled with concepts that beginners find extremely difficult to comprehend from explanations:

  - pointers
  - closures
  - recursion

Monads are no more difficult to grasp than any of these concepts (but no one would ever claim that it will be "hard to hire devs that understand closures...")