The State Machine Your async Method Compiles Into
An async method that never suspends allocates nothing. The same method, suspended once, allocates 160 bytes. The cost is not the keyword — it is the suspension.
Async in production
What `async` compiles into, what it costs at runtime, and the failure modes that only appear once real load is on the thread pool.
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Where Thread Pool Starvation Actually Comes From
Blocking on a task is the case the thread pool compensates for. Blocking on a sleep or an event is the case it cannot see, and it finished 2.5 times slower.