this seems odd. The main advantage other than going faster than Node ( which you'd expect ) is that it's cross platform and can run in containers and has libraries.....like MOST other languages.

Not knocking .NET Core, I use it a lot... but this just doesn't seem like it tells you what's special about it

Sanely designed/mature libraries I might add. I went through an exercise to build a simple web app with Rust and ASP.NET/Core - I was mind boggled how mature the .NET Core stack/ASP.NET felt compared to pulling in 3rd party crates that are constantly in flux. Even after you're done fighting them the code still looks daunting compared to C# - there is a certain cleanliness to it.

Not criticizing Rust which is a very new and different language - I am just comparing it's current state to something as established as .NET now that it's cross platform.

The .NET ecosystem is a lot more mature than Rust's, there is no arguing that. As for code cleanliness, though, it's debatable. Rust has ADTs, Option, exhaustive pattern matching, Option and Result. C# doesn't.

But then I would say that ;)