There may be a bit of culture at play sometimes as well. If a language isn't meant to be fast, then perhaps devs using the language do not prioritize performance very much. For some, as long as it is possible to point to some externality ("hey this is Python, what do you expect") this is sufficient.
Of course, not always the case. C++ is a good counter example with a massive range of performance "orientedness". On the other hand, I suspect there are few Rust / Zig or C programmers that don't care about performance.
To me, Python is more of a challenge than an excuse when it comes to performance.
On the flip side, I've seen quite a few C developers using their own hand-rolled linked lists where vector-like storage would be more appropriate, without giving it a second thought. Implementing good hash tables from scratch turns out not to be very much fun, either. I'm sure there are off the shelf solutions for that sort of thing, but `#include` and static compilation in C don't exactly encourage module reuse the same way that modern languages with package managers do (even considering all the unique issues with Python package management). For better or worse.
(For what it's worth, I worked in J2ME for phones in the North American market in the mid 00s, if you remember what those were like.)
Of course, not always the case. C++ is a good counter example with a massive range of performance "orientedness". On the other hand, I suspect there are few Rust / Zig or C programmers that don't care about performance.