The velocity of the electrons is _irrelevant_ to the operation of a resistor. The key feature of a resistor is a substantial voltage / current ratio: i.e. it takes energy to shove electrons through the resistor. Different materials & geometries may constrain the electrons in different ways, and may yield different drift velocities.

If a circuit element requires a lot of energy to shove an electron from one end of the element to the other, it will be a "resistor" - regardless of the speed at which the electrons move. The energy input to force the electrons through the material is commonly dissipated as heat:

 * [Hotter metals have a higher resistivity than cool ones](https://atlas-scientific.com/blog/does-temperature-affect-conductivity/), since the electrons (and associated EM waves) scatter off the mobile atoms and the less-regular crystal structure. Different types of materials may have different temperature-dependence.
 * A narrow sample of a material will have a higher resistance than a thicker wire: Fine-gauge wires can thus function as resistors or even fuses. The electrons interfere with and repel each other, limiting their motion through the bottleneck.
 * Superconductors allow all the electrons to move together as a coordinated whole, without scattering off atoms or each other - but they needn't move at an especially high speed.
 * Different materials have different resistivities because their energy bands have different [structures](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Band_gap) in physical and momentum space.
 * Magnetic and electric fields can [perturb](https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/chemistry/magnetoresistance) the atomic energy levels, changing the number of electrons which can travel simultaneously in the material without interfering with each other or the atomic lattice.