A .htaccess is a per-request file read, and it adds up

Apache checks for .htaccess in every directory from the document root down to the requested file, on every request, and it cannot cache the result because the file may change at any moment.

<Directory /var/www/html>
    AllowOverride None          # stop looking for .htaccess entirely
    Require all granted
</Directory>

# and move whatever was in it here, where it is parsed once at start

On a deep path this is four or five stat calls per request that produce nothing. The measured difference on a small site is a couple of milliseconds, which is not why it matters — the reason to move the rules into the server configuration is that they become reviewable, version-controlled and impossible to change by uploading a file. AllowOverride None is also the setting that stops a compromised upload directory being able to reconfigure the server.