Ideally people would use the hotspots to back-haul IoT data. Its a business that is real, and could work (eg. TheThingNetwork, Amazon Sidewalk) but doesn't make a lot of sense to use as a customer until you see strong coverage in areas you need... which open-access incentives like crypto (or just paying hotspot owners) could theoretically help solve. The crypto-washing of an otherwise valid business model (even if not profitable business) probably ruined a lot of the potential for this business to be successful.

For example, instead of Lime scooters using 5g cell towers to track their scooters, they could use LoRa, which would be lower power, but it only works if the service area is already fully covered.