From what i know, the speed is roughly the same, the difference is the price or fee you have to pay. Now it's more expensive to send bitcoin because the demand and number of transactions is increasing compared to 2 years ago.
You’re right, the amount of time required for the transaction to get confirmed is pretty much the same as a couple of years ago. People were complaining about the transaction fees then too and a little bit of progress was made from the complaints (Viabtc was built so the transactions could get accelerated causing a bunch transactions getting confirmed much faster than normal).
We are seeing a little bit of progress of the years, if only more miners applied a free transaction accelerator for the people.
Don't expect that to happen in the future, Viabtc was created in purpose of supporting bitcoin unlimited if I'm not mistaken, the miners will not going to make a free BTC accelerator because it'll reduce their profit.
If you want to see the reality, just look at Bitcoin accelerator other than Viabtc, they'll require you to pay a high amount of money, that's what miners actually want from you.