One bar of wifi still sends a message. Weak signal isn’t no signal.

Low capacity and zero capacity are different, and on hard days they feel identical. A small amount of energy still moves things, slowly, and the mistake is deciding that if you cannot do the full version there is no point doing any of it. Most stalls come from that rule rather than from actually having nothing left.

On a flat day, name the smallest possible version of the thing and do that. Two problems instead of twenty. One message instead of the whole conversation. Reduced output is still output, and it keeps the connection from dropping entirely.