Last year I came across a nice chart of latency numbers every programmer should know. Today, I saw this page, which shows you the same latency numbers, but also provides a timeline from 1990 to 2020.
For some operations, latency is constant, because it’s based on things of nature – speed of light, distance between continents, etc. For other operations, latency can be decreased through better technology and algorithms.
The timeline clearly shows the mind-blowing advance we’ve experienced in technology over the last three decades.