> I thought Rust had other, better ways to create non-blocking code so I don't understand why to use async instead.

'async' exists because Python has that GIL bullshit and so Python programmers had to invent that fifth wheel of 'async programming'.

Programmers in other languages then got jealous because they, too, wanted a complex, unnecessary framework that pollutes the whole runtime and serves to differentiate regular programmers from 'rockstar' programmers.

And so async got fashionable and barely-literate coders now think async is magic performance dust that will automatically make your program run 1000% faster.

TL;DR - it's just fashion, give it five years and we'll be reading posts about how async sucks and that it's stupid legacy tech invented by bonehead dinosaurs.