I'm not sure this is 100% correct. I haven't researched it but why would they perform such a check at runtime if it is 1)material and 2) can be done at compile time. However, even if it is, Go is only trying to be medium fast / efficient in the same realm as its garbage collected peers (Java and C#).

If you want to look at Rust peer languages though, I do think the direction the Zig team is heading with 0.16 looks like a good direction to me.