So LoRa back in 2014 was about base stations relaying messages from IoT devices. During the years I was running base stations for SIGFOX and TTN. During that time I received no third party messages to relay.
I've been running meshtastic nodes for a few weeks now, both in my home in the Oxfordshire countryside which has seen no other nodes, other than through MQTT, which I turned on for a couple of hours and picked up 2,500 other stations.
So I brought my nodes to my home in Ventnor, on the Isle of Wight, where I saw about 5 other nodes. I've sent several messages, 1 confirmed message, but have yet to receive a reply after 3 days.