Climbers in general are, unlike dynamic ropes, not main users
of static ropes. The predominant use of static ropes is
industrial use, such as, in a work environment of tall buildings, towers
(oil-rigging etc) and for ships and tree-climbing. Within sports,
apart from marine sports like sailing, it is heavily used in caving and canyoning.
After all, to climb something ground-up, which is arguably what
climbing is all about, climbers vitally need dynamic ropes to absorb
a shock in potential falls. Even though there is some use for static ropes
in climbing as summarised in the text, its use is somewhat limited,
though you really want one when you do.
For that reason, the knowledge about static ropes by climbers,
as well as stocks of them in climbing shops, tends to be limited,
whereas a large number and variety of static ropes are available
in the market, which can be confusing.
Here is my attempt to summarise what is the feature to look for,
and what sort of models are available as of 2016 in the market.
