Exactly, this model emerged from the desire to enable devices in a mesh network to pay eachother, because the networks can't scale if they rely on philanthropy on behalf of the node operators.
Discussion
Arguably it isn't a mesh network anymore, because the routers don't need to agree on a business model or on what the mark-up should be.
Yes, 100%. I had a similar thought with LoRa meshtastic repeaters, no idea how that could work right now though.
The LoRa version of TollGate is called nutband:
https://github.com/jooray/nutband
I would love to see that project thrive, though I focus on TCP/IP capable hardware (TollGate) because I want all out connectivity needs to be addressed in a permissionless manner. LoRa can be very useful, but its a bit niche..
Related: there is a LoRa based project for passing partially signed Bitcoin transactions around over meshtactic:
Awesome, thanks for that info!