Thank you all for your help.
It is still concerning that your local node couldn't start synchronizing. Also, relying on a remote node run by someone you don't know is not recommended. To check whether this problem is Aeon-specific or not, please try running Monero's daemon (https://github.com/monero-project/monero/releases) and see if it starts synchronizing.
I have had this issue if using VPN. Sometimes it can run for days and never start syncing. Disable VPN, within about 10 min it starts syncing.
Not saying this is what is going on with many people recently, I have just experienced it myself for a while. Right now I have only 2 out connections after almost 10 min of syncing:
Height: 1227944/1233427 (99.6%) on mainnet, not mining, net hash 12.08 TH/s, v8, 2(out)+0(in) connections, uptime 0d 0h 9m 29s