alt Hacker NewsBut they're objectively inferior to the real internet and nobody uses them. People only use Meshtastic to say "hello, I'm using Meshtastic!"
A cool idea would be to build out an ISP to a small set of hub locations using leased lines or illegally placed fiber something, but that will get expensive.
I heard someone have an idea to use a drone to lay illegal fiber across city rooftops.
Hams do stuff like this all the time, as a hobby. But yes, most people won’t be that interested. The experience isn’t the same as regular internet (and that’s ok).
If you have line of sight, or can borrow a tower that does, you could always use point-to-point wireless or laser links to build a high bandwidth backbone. This would let you play LAN games if that makes it more interesting.
I concede that most people aren’t going to be interested in this. It is what it is.