Remote is slow to restore, but it's even slower to back up in the first place. With the current state of not-so-high-speed internet in North America, it could take several weeks to upload 100GB of pictures and videos.
One of the reasons they made March 31st World Backup Day is to prevent data loss in case of a nasty prank on April Fools' Day. Not sure how realistic a threat that is, but it sort of defeats the stated purpose of World Backup Day if your backup won't complete until mid-May.
Also, most remote backup services allow you to restore files and folders selectively, so you just need to download a small amount if you're in a real hurry.
One option that Backblaze (and some others) offer is the ability to order an external hard drive with all your data via FedEx. That way, if you need a terabyte of data back, you get it quickly.
