Don’t get me wrong: At no point did I suggest you should be content with your situation. I think after over two weeks without a response of any kind you have made the right call by opening this thread. But I think there’s a good chance that employees or volunteers of itch will be unable to help you with the information I am aware of.
I do not think you are crazy or that your internet is “crappy”. Just FYI: With a download of about 700-something KB to 1 MB per second (on good days) my internet is crappy in most people’s eyes. And I just hate to reveal those things, but sooner or later it would have come to this anyway: At the moment I live in Europe as well. So I don’t think that’s necessarily the cause of the issue.
Also: With my limited perspective, this seems like the 6th case this year,to me, so I would not have expected it to be a common problem. Then again: If it’s not too much to ask, poke those people on reddit and other forums to join us here (and maybe contribute to this thread). They already have accounts, so they might as well make their voices heard where there’s a better chance they will actually be noticed by the people they think are responsible.
Unfortunately “they should hire more people” is only a possibility when there is a profit. As far as I know itch.io does not have that kind of income. And hosting alone cost them in the ballpark of $30,k per month - and that’s independent from the number of sales made (since there are a lot of games in the pay-what-you-want category that itch host for free). Like you said: There are a lot of other sales platforms available. Itch is not really “big” - it’s just “popular (with some people)”. I don’t think itch see themselves as competition for those stores. (Although my experience with them so far has been better than the one I had with GOG after an equal amount of time.)
And, of course, as a last resort you could always look into what recently bought games you can still get your money back. “I cannot download the digital goods I paid for at in under half a day” does strike me as a really good reason for asking for a refund.
I hope the download issue you and others have gets sorted out one way or another and that you also have a nice day. :)