Exactly. People hate on Electron because they have bad experiences with many Electron apps, but that's not because Electron is inherently terrible, it's because most developers choose Electron because it requires the lowest amount of effort. When you start with that as your single reason for choosing a tech stack, it's unsurprising that optimizing performance never happens.
VSCode works because they chose Electron for the advantages that web tech has when it comes to building a plugin ecosystem. They were then willing to put in the effort to make performance decent.
VSCode works because they chose Electron for the advantages that web tech has when it comes to building a plugin ecosystem. They were then willing to put in the effort to make performance decent.