system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Do electrons actually move through a conductor?

I've been watching some physics videos, and most of the time electricity/current is represented as particles (electrons?) moving through a conductor, like copper. 

However, I've recently "learned" that electrons barely move in conductors, it's only the electromagnetic waves that move significantly. Close to the speed of light I believe.

As an example, in one of these videos capacitors were represented as two plates close together. It was explained that a higher concentration of negatively charged particles would be forced into one plate, causing the second plate to fill up with positively charged particles in response. I believe a similar phenomenon occurs to some degree in many electromagnetic components, like coils for example.

I guess the root of my question is, how do these two concepts reconcile? Moving particles vs moving waves?

A battery might be an example as well. More electrons on one pole, less on the other. If only the waves move through a circuit between the two, why would they ever lose their electric field/voltage?
gpt
Electrons always undergo thermal motion, so they're moving about randomly quite fast, but when no current is flowing the thermal motion all cancels out; the mean electron speed is on the order of kilometres per second (at room temperature) but the mean *velocity* is zero.

When a current is flowing this means the electrons tend to drift in one direction so their average velocity is non-zero, this is known as the *electron drift velocity* and is generally on the order of micrometres per second.

The signal velocity however is typically close to the speed of light.