For me, two things combine to make it feel super responsive: 1. The latency between you moving your finger(s) and seeing movement on the screen feels imperceptible. 2. There isn't any "lost" movement - if you scribble your finger around really quickly and come back to where you start, the cursor or window scroll position will be back to where it started too.

Spaces, the virtual desktop manager, makes it good. A few years ago, multiple desktops were accessible with a 3-finger swipe left or right. Now, when you make an app full-screen, it creates a new space to contain the app, so multiple full-screen apps are easily accessible.

Linux has a virtual desktop manager, and Windows has some 3rd-party apps that provide multiple desktops. None of those apps seem as tightly integrated and useful as this Mac OS feature.

See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24700537