I don't "want to do that" but I tried to make the point that many users heavily rely on that. I can work with offline maps, but I'm not above admitting it's a tad more work that, for most, is a real deal breaker

Not weird. I keep my phone on airplane mode unless I'm actively making a phone call, for privacy reasons (here in the USA, cell tower data is sold to anyone with money through data brokers). Using a mobile map app (Google, Bing, HereWeGo, etc.) with location services on would be pretty bad for privacy. I like the fact that CoMaps works even when the location service is off (unless I don't know where I am and I need the current location) and the airplane mode is on.

In a perfect world, you'd have both.

First, instant streaming as you browse the map while internet connected, so you don't deal with delays, don't have to wait for the map to download before you can do anything with it. And while doing that, also download offline maps in the background, without interrupting the user.

But, yeah, I can definitely see why a open source project with limited resources wouldn't be able to make streaming available.