标准自己说了原因:
c++11 23.3.4.1/1
[Note: It is intended that forward_list have zero space or time overhead relative to a hand-written C-style singly linked list. Features that would conflict with that goal have been omitted. — end note]
Forward list is a container which supports fast insertion and removal of elements from anywhere from the container. Fast random access is not supported. It is implemented as singly-linked list and essentially does not have any overhead compared to its implementation in C. Compared to std::list this container provides more space efficient storage, when bidirectional iteration is not needed.