Yes, actually, you are right. It's all the same in Python because the references can always point to any value, and None is just a value of the NoneType.
And due to Python's runtime types, it wouldn't matter either way, because even if None only existed within the context of a Maybe type, you could still just apply any operation on it and have crash at the first method call on it.
And due to Python's runtime types, it wouldn't matter either way, because even if None only existed within the context of a Maybe type, you could still just apply any operation on it and have crash at the first method call on it.