> I'm not a systems programmer, all of the problems I work on can be solved with higher level garbage collected languages

Great. Use those languages. Don't criticise rust for not being one of those languages

> people are carrying that complexity everywhere else too, and it doesn't seem like a tradeoff that's worth it.

Yes, there are people who have used Rust in places where a higher level language would be more appropriate. However rust has characteristics beyond raw performance that make it often a compelling choice in areas outside of systems programming. The complexity of the language brings benefits that may or may not suit a particular use case. Any criticism of necessity or otherwise of its complexity is just noise without talking about what you want to use it for.