Not just that - the kicker is everything that already exists (libraries, JDBC drivers, etc) are now just automagically non-blocking too if you seed the thread p

Not just that - the kicker is everything that already exists (libraries, JDBC drivers, etc) are now just automagically non-blocking too if you seed the thread pool with a virtual thread factory. I can't remember the last time such a transparent, drop-in-able change was so impactful for just about everything. While it doesn't remove the need for the event/reactive/async paradigm in all cases, it does removes the need for async code just for the sake of being non-blocking. Code can now be written much more clearly, and still be non-blocking. That's huge.