If there was real money to be made operating the devices, wouldn't the investors be investing in that too? It was just magic beans, though.
That's what happened.
The fundamental problem is that everyone already has home internet and phone plans. Why would they pay for another service that is not as good? On top of that, most operators were likely violating their TOS with their existing internet provider by making a paid access service on top of it.
A tale as old as time. cough andreeson horowitz cough
Crypto should be designed so that its creators cannot profit from it...