The network stack by itself is incredibly fast. I am talking about the Linux TCP/IP stack here, but I suppose that other vendors do just as well if not better.
I wrote a simple web server in C and I was impressed by how tight my code had to be to reach the limits of the OS.
Even the internet is fast. Just look at fighting games. The simple fact they are playable over the internet is quite a feat. Fighting games require reaction times at the limit of what humans are capable of, and some moves require a 1/60s accuracy.
The problem is that there are so many layers of abstraction. You have the OS, JS engine, layout engine, frameworks, etc... Networking is just one of the layers.
I wrote a simple web server in C and I was impressed by how tight my code had to be to reach the limits of the OS.
Even the internet is fast. Just look at fighting games. The simple fact they are playable over the internet is quite a feat. Fighting games require reaction times at the limit of what humans are capable of, and some moves require a 1/60s accuracy.
The problem is that there are so many layers of abstraction. You have the OS, JS engine, layout engine, frameworks, etc... Networking is just one of the layers.