Extracting callbacks into separate functions is just more indirection. And they don't solve the core issue of async control flow that async/await solves, so it

Extracting callbacks into separate functions is just more indirection. And they don't solve the core issue of async control flow that async/await solves, so it's not an alternative to async/await much less a superior one. A classic example is when you want to conditionally do something asynchronously like B() in this case. function process(id, callback) { A(id, (result) => { if (result === 3) { B(() => { C(result, callback); }); } else { C(result, callback); } }); } Versus: async function process(id) { const result = await A(id); if (result === 3) { await B(); } return C(result); } Add a couple more layers of this and the async/await function stays simple and flat, and the callback version grows significantly more complex and nested.