It doesn't have to be 100%-same-as-face-to-face or nothing. In fact, it would be misguided to have imitation of "real life" be your guiding principle when designing stuff on the internet. Your ultimate goal, then, would be to create an extra copy of something we already have--the real world--and that's obviously pointless.

And nobody ever does that with the Web. What people actually do is create modes of interaction that are deliberately different from and better than real life. Just because you or I can't think of a mode that's as "rich" as face-to-face interaction, but is better for whatever purpose, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.