>If "work reliably even in shit network conditions" was a baseline requirement that their jobs depended on, you bet they'd find a way.
This is the real problem - there are deadlines and most projects don't even consider working in questionable network conditions. Developers aren't going to put in the extra effort when it doesn't contribute to the job they are asked to do.
I have had to deal with poor App/Play Store reviews for both of "It doesn't work on the train while I'm commuting in the morning" and "It doesn't work at the event when there are 100,000+ other people there" flaky network related problems.
I always at least _ask_ in the requirements gathering stage for a new mobile app: "how much effort do we want to dedicate to app performance/reliability under marginal network conditions?"
As it turns out, pretty much all mobile app owners are as apathetic about that as most mobile app developers. (On the other hand, once you've got a reputation for being able to handle those sorts of flaky network edge cases, you get more and more work for the sort of apps that benefit from them. The downside of that is it's never the flashy resume-building-apps that come to you for this.)
This is the real problem - there are deadlines and most projects don't even consider working in questionable network conditions. Developers aren't going to put in the extra effort when it doesn't contribute to the job they are asked to do.