Well each time you use the await keyword you are saying its a safe point to exit, which is more predictable than killing at random points. Holding locks across

Well each time you use the await keyword you are saying its a safe point to exit, which is more predictable than killing at random points. Holding locks across await points is an anti-pattern, and Rust at least can give a hint if you try to do that. Async/await implementations will also generally allow you to run cleanup code on cancellation (but the exact mechanism depends on the language). In the end, its about expressing a state machine in a more concise implicit way, which is a suitable level of abstraction for most use cases.