In theory it sounds like a reasonable explanation, but Helium is underperforming so much, that I doubt anyone would make the investment at this point.
It's almost comical that, in this context, the term "legacy" is applicable for 1-year old nodes. Things change fast in the crypto world I guess!
Helium hype really makes it difficult for other real IoT networks to operate also, like The Things Network, the operators of which do it for free (including myself). Why does everything have to be a moneymaker?
Translation: "Why does everything need to be sustainable? Can't we just keep grifting off of people providing a service for free?"
I always see comments here about open source projects needing better funding mechanisms. Crypto solves this but everyone scoffs at it because crypto has become some boogey man word that gets shunned mostly because of Bitcoin being first with no utility and wasteful energy and ignores any progress made in the space.
(Bad ideas in this space: GRCoin which pays you for folding@home but can never actually pay the power costs, Payver which supposedly paid for capturing road images while driving but ended up giving like $2/year.)