Yes, web layer right now just happens to be the one people notice slowing things down.
Go back to early 90's and you will find lots of complaints about how moving to Windows and GUI was backwards step from character-mode DOS because of the extra layers Windows added, the sluggish UI response, general slowness of Windows apps, and increased complexity and difficulty of developing for Windows. Of course, despite this, there were lots of obvious advantages of moving to Windows from DOS. Eventually the slowdown added by Windows abstractions became pretty much a non-issue, shortly before the move to web development gained critical mass and started the cycle all over again.
Go back to early 90's and you will find lots of complaints about how moving to Windows and GUI was backwards step from character-mode DOS because of the extra layers Windows added, the sluggish UI response, general slowness of Windows apps, and increased complexity and difficulty of developing for Windows. Of course, despite this, there were lots of obvious advantages of moving to Windows from DOS. Eventually the slowdown added by Windows abstractions became pretty much a non-issue, shortly before the move to web development gained critical mass and started the cycle all over again.