The pipes analogy gives people a wildly unrealistic idea of the speed of electron movement in a wire. They only move a few mm/s at max current in copper wire. Electrons take minutes to go down the power cable from your PSU to your GPU. At GHz frequencies, they move less than an atom diameter.
How come? It seems it is very analogous to water in a pipe. Let's say I have a 30 m long garden hose. The water in it moves (in the order of magnitude of) 10 m/s in it. If the water is turned off, and I hold my thumb at the end of the hose and turn the tap on, I feel the water pressure almost immediately (the speed of mechanical waves in water). So it is obvious that there are two speeds. One is the speed of propagation and one is the speed of the medium, and they are way different.
