Honestly, .NET should be the default choice for any non-trivial backend or non-GUI application. I assume the legacy (outdated/inaccurate) perception of MSFT's stewardship is the only reason anyone reaches for something else.
AOT is a game changer for native binaries, but even with fw dependence, the cross platform support is excellent (we deploy to Linux servers frequently.)
>> .NET should be the default choice for any non-trivial backend or non-GUI application
I personally wouldn't go that far. If you know well, it makes sense to use it, but you already know Java or Go, would the benefit delta isn't going to be that high.
Somewhat famously, even Anders Hejlsberg decided to use Go vs .NET for the new Typescript compiler. .NET is fine (and I have personally used it a lot) but that doesn't mean it is net better than other options out there.
For GUI there are Avalonia (cross-platform WPF), Uno Platform (cross-platform WinUI) and old-school bindings to native UI frameworks on Android, iOS & Mac (you can do UIKit/AppKit in C#), and of course Windows.
AOT is a game changer for native binaries, but even with fw dependence, the cross platform support is excellent (we deploy to Linux servers frequently.)