> Lazy loading makes it impossible to do anything to manage a poor connection.

This was the exact problem lazy loading was supposed to solve

If the problem was out-of-viewport images impeding the receipt of assets that do affect the viewport (CSS, fonts, etc.) then it would be good to postpone fetching those images just until everything else is received, rather than postponing until they're closer to the viewport.

Fun fact, if you type your password, it will show up as ***

Makes me wonder what other great ideas we've implemented.

Which is indeed why it's a terrible idea.

In this case it's also the choice of the user, they could choose to ignore the lazy loading tags (I know OP mentions their browser doesn't supports it, but they could choose another browser)

"Best viewed in Internet Explorer" is absolutely not something that needs to make a comeback.

Seems hard not to these days, especially with service workers which can cache resources for offline use.