With a straight shot, latency from one coast to the other is at least 50 ms [0]. A more typical route is on the order of 80 ms.

That's definitely noticeable for latency-sensitive actions. I recently switched a server from Oregon to New Mexico, and I notice the latency increase with mosh.

Moreover, there's not a lot of timezone difference between the east and west coasts of the US. Going someplace like Europe is more like 180 ms.

I've played games with a ping like that, but a lot of the ping was my wifi. Doubling the latency would not make the game a better experience.

This could work well for certain types of game, those that are a little less latency-sensitive. But in general the latency is still a big issue.

[0]: speed of light in fiber is ~ 100e6 m/s, around 3000 miles between coasts