Well, I hoped too. The problem is that "lightweight" are not that lightweight, as they need garbage collection. So, in theory, one can create 100K threads on one machine, but in practice that's going to keep burning processor for GC cycles.
Another thing is what those lightweight threads are doing? If they play with CPU that's ok, you pay GC penalty and that's all. But if they access limited resources (database, another HTTP service), etc. in real application you face the standard issue: you cannot hit the targeted system with any data you want, this external system will backfire, sooner or later.
The good thing in reactive programming is that it does not try to pretend that above problem does not exist. It forces to handle errors, to handle backpressure, as those problems will not magically disappear when we switch to green threads, lightweight threads, etc. There is no free lunch here, network has its restrictions, databases has to write do disk eventually, and so on.
Another thing is what those lightweight threads are doing? If they play with CPU that's ok, you pay GC penalty and that's all. But if they access limited resources (database, another HTTP service), etc. in real application you face the standard issue: you cannot hit the targeted system with any data you want, this external system will backfire, sooner or later.
The good thing in reactive programming is that it does not try to pretend that above problem does not exist. It forces to handle errors, to handle backpressure, as those problems will not magically disappear when we switch to green threads, lightweight threads, etc. There is no free lunch here, network has its restrictions, databases has to write do disk eventually, and so on.