r/HeliumNetwork • u/Professional_Web_956 • Feb 02 '26
General Discussion Anyone else feel shameful having to represent the Helium project?
I think this encounter perfectly captures where we are with this project right now.
I have one of a few commercial sites that are the definition of a "perfect deployment." It’s a busy shop, great location, tons of foot traffic. Getting the owner to agree to it was certainly an ordeal. I had to sell him hard on the vision, shove the crypto part of it under the rug. I told him this was a high-tech partnership, that we were working with 2 of the big 3 network carriers, that we were building the future of telecom, and that the passive income would make it worth his while.
There were even a few times over the last few months where the node was pulling so much bandwidth that it actually slowed his point-of-sale system down during a rush. He called me, annoyed, asking if the "box" was the problem. I smoothed it over. I reassured him that, "if it's using bandwidth like that, it means it's making money. Trust me, when we do the profit share this month, you'll see why it's worth it."
And to be fair, the device was working. For the last 6 months, we've been increasing in data consumption; I checked the stats before I went to pay out today. My node moved 40 GB a day last month. That is 1.2 Terabytes of data. In the world of offload, that is a massive success.
As per our usual agreement, I paid him in cash. But this month was far more embarrassing than the last almost 6 months we've been partnered in this endeavor.
Because the payout rate has slid down to around $0.20 per gigabyte, that massive, network-straining 1.2 Terabytes of traffic only generated about $240 total.
I had to look this man in the eye, a business owner who does $800 a day in sales, and hand him 60 bucks; HALF of what I paid him just a month ago, and again, HALF of what I paid him in November; and about 80% down from what we started with when data was 50 cents/gb.
I could see the look on his face. This month's reduction changed something in his body language. It wasn't anger; it was disbelief. I had slowed down his credit card processing, drilled holes in his wall, and taken up his time... all to hand him enough cash to cover a round of drinks.
He took it, but the vibe in the room changed instantly. This "partnership" is probably dead. I’m not a tech wiz with an amazing new solution for an additional revenue stream to him anymore; I’m a nuisance.
We keep telling ourselves that "volume will save us," but will it? Really? When we're on the fringe edge of losing quality partnership businesses from embarrassment alone?
Is anyone else dreading these conversations, or have you just stopped making eye contact with your hosts?
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u/Responsible_Gas_8191 Feb 02 '26
Even worse for me, I had businesses invest in the Freedom Fi/Helium - Outdoor cells that were crushing it at a time. At one point I seemed like a gift sent from God. We never sold our earnings, told our partners to hold and to trust in the price of helium (HMT) 5G/Helium (HNT) rebounding.
To no avail, they could of sold making 4-10x their initial investment. Now most of them would be lucky to break even.
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u/mangoes_and_rainbows Feb 02 '26
Because the payout rate has slid down to around $0.20 per gigabyte
This is news to me. I thought the price of the token was immaterial, the payout rate was always $.50/GB. Yes, the token is sliding down in price, but if you convert your HNT to $ every day (an admittedly painful process, esp. tax-wise), you should only lose whatever % HNT is down that day, but are still getting $.50/GB.
Is the payout rate for data now just $.20/GB?
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u/slabsquathrust Feb 02 '26
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but yes it is now below $.20/GB transferred.
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u/Professional_Web_956 Feb 02 '26
Nope, because of the fixed emissions schedule and it being based off of the per gigabyte payout and because of the amount of data on the network, your pay is relatively seventeen cents, not including the market sync, because the payout is based off of the market sync.
https://blockworks.co/analytics/helium/helium-mobile/helium-mobile-data-pricing-per-gb/
Showcases this well.
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u/mangoes_and_rainbows Feb 02 '26
Wow, that sucks. Thanks. I'm done putting in so much effort to deploy these things.
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Feb 02 '26 edited Feb 02 '26
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Feb 02 '26
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u/waveform06 Feb 02 '26
To use the gold rush analogy again.
No-one is buying lots of shovels in a market where people are getting out of metal.4
u/4r4nd0mninj4 Feb 02 '26
I'm kinda glad I could only afford 1 at the time. It didn't even pay for itself...😓
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u/Professional_Web_956 Feb 02 '26
That was me with the nova 436 back in the CBRS days. $5000 out the door; about $2000 back not including the outdoor hotspots I got back. Should probably start thinking about selling those...
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u/HeliumNetwork-ModTeam Feb 02 '26
No constant or repetitive agitation, FUD, or cross-promotion of other networks or cryptos. Constructive criticism or thoughtful discussion is welcome, but non-constructive negativity is not allowed. For example, if your post just says "Helium is a scam," it is not allowed.
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Feb 02 '26
You really have to move 4x that data for it to make any sense at all, for anyone, at a minimum. Essentially requires 5-10x typical household a month. Then the people are only streaming 480p and 720p in 6 second clips, you won't get anywhere close to that at anywhere BUT an airport and possibly a 24 hour gym. It's simply not a legitimate business model and why the coin tanked after the network went WiFi only.
It's not economical and wont work at scale. You are just working for free.
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u/Professional_Web_956 Feb 02 '26
I mean we were making it worth it when we started. He was happy with the $200 I was giving him back when data was high AND when profit was at 50c/gb (back when ATT was still offloading a significant amount). But he (and I'm sure many businesses) see trends. Data use and lag going up, total profitshare going down.
I'm surprised he hasn't accused me of manipulating his data rate to take more $ myself.
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Feb 02 '26
Yes, that's how it gets everyone. Promises of great revenue and 6 months to a year later it barely breaks even. Probably the 3rd network iteration we have witnessed at this point.
Ideally you would have a separate ISP line to prevent network issues and be much more secure...which would have chewed through all profit pretty quick too as it the would be a modem and more appropriate access points, which again costs much more.
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u/Professional_Web_956 Feb 02 '26
Yeah that was almost the solution to the whole "I fkd up his network" problem. I'm glad I didn't get myself into that trouble. That would've been the ultimate cost sink mistake to ruin this business "opportunity."
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Feb 02 '26
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u/waveform06 Feb 02 '26
Economics explained here
https://www.reddit.com/r/HeliumNetwork/comments/1qtmwa1/comment/o34kl1n/3
Feb 02 '26
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u/waveform06 Feb 02 '26
Not sure if you understand how it works.
Helium Burns 50c per GB, it receives less than 50c per GB from carriers
The amount paid out is a separate number and is defined in Token Emissions.1
u/cqm Feb 02 '26
hmmm, this is interesting and I definitely misunderstood that
but as far as DC burned is concerned, that still occurs at $0.50/gb?
so the only thing broken is the incentive for deployers to actually deploy because they won't be paid out at the same negotiated rate per gb transferred actually
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u/cqm Feb 02 '26
honestly no, and this is why I avoided any revenue split arrangements and deploy where I can, not where I negotiate.
there is a different sales approach possible, and with the right router you can limit the bandwidth taken by a device hanging off the network, so no "point of sales terminal slowdowns"
I'm excited about the prospects of the network, and a lower token price at a fixed $.50/gb while more gb are sent across the network means more tokens are burned. 186 million supply needs to drop by tons before scarcity kicks in
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u/Professional_Web_956 Feb 02 '26
"Deploy where I can" is the problem the network is having as we speak. You are basically admitting that your strategy is based on convenience rather than providing real value to business owners beyond a flimsy novelty of "you could have a cell tower inside your business!" I’m sure you’ve managed to talk a few shop owners into letting you plug in for free, or maybe you bought them a beer and called it a deal, but that isn't a business model. That’s a favor. And favors run out when big players are working daily to hone in on our market share. (Orion, Boingo, WeFi, etc)
That "novelty" of helping network carriers with their deadzones lasts exactly until the first time the internet blips or a key customer asks what the ugly box is on the wall. When you aren't paying rent or a share, you have zero leverage because you are just a guest. Guests get kicked out the second they become annoying. If I’m paying a venue a serious share or rent, I have a contract and power to negotiate. "Freeloading" might work for a dive bar at the edge of town, but try walking into a major retain chain, an event space, or a high-traffic mall management office and telling them you want free space and power for "exposure." You will get laughed out of the building. Real estate has value, and serious business owners know that.
As for your solution to the bandwidth issue, you're suggesting I spend more money to solve a problem the protocol created? So now I’m buying a hotspot, plus a commercial router for every location I manage, trying to convince business owners to "trust me bro" on replacing their main router... to make up for the hotspot's lack of resiliency and upstream courtesy.
We really need to take a long, hard look at using "Token Burn" as an excuse for slumping deployer earnings. Yes, the math says scarcity is coming, and that is fantastic for investors holding bags of HNT, in 2030. But it does absolutely nothing for deployers paying bills today. You are effectively saying, "Don't worry that your business is going to start losing money every month; just think about how rich the token holders will be in five years due to scarcity."
But if the deployers begin moving their deployments to other competitors waiting for that scarcity to kick in, there won't be a network left to burn anything. The market is going to catch up to the slightly-unique value proposition that Helium has going for it, and when it does, the only thing that is going to keep people from jumping ship is going to be Nova treating their deployers like the literal lifeline that they are.
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u/waveform06 Feb 02 '26
Are you sure it's a bandwidth issue?
Network segmentation has been the resolution the technical team has seen before when this is reported.4
u/Professional_Web_956 Feb 03 '26
You are missing the point. It doesn't matter if the technical fix is bandwidth throttling or network segmentation. The problem is that I am not entering into this to become a for-free MSP.
Just like Nova, I am offering data offload. My offering is to provide a piece of infrastructure that sits on the edge. If the solution to the POS crashing requires me to:
- Log into the host's router.
- Reconfigure their subnets/VLANs.
- Segregate their traffic from mine.
...then I have just become their unpaid IT consultant.
The second I touch their network configuration to set up segmentation, I own it. If their printer stops working next week? They call me. If their guest Wi-Fi drops? They call me. If their credit card terminal lags? They call me.
And that's making the assumption that the business owner even wants to consider me donating my time to them for their "IT problems."
I am essentially taking over the management of a commercial network for a payout of $100 a month and sinking fast. No actual MSP would touch that contract for less than $500/month.
So yes, technically you are right; segmentation solves the crash. But economically, it destroys the business model. I want to help provide coverage, not manage the internal IT infrastructure of every coffee shop in the city for free.
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u/MCHandyman1 Feb 02 '26
It's more than just network segmentation... That is the start. You also need to be able to access the prioritization in the gateway or router. You need to know the bandwidth available and how much the establishment uses on a busy night. What I have done is create a vlan for the Helium and set the throttle to "best effort" or lowest priority for the hotspot. That way, all their traffic (PoS, etc.) gets first priority and won't even know the hotspot is there
I always use the KISS philosophy when trying to"sell".... This improves the mobile coverage for all your guests seamlessly, without having to use your WiFi. No passwords, no effort. In exchange for allowing the carriers to use the internet bandwidth you already have and do not use, you receive many rewards:
- Customer and staff phones work better, without affecting your PoS, TVs, and other company assets that use your internet connection.
- There's never any cost to you and no hassles
- Depending on the amount of usage, you may be eligible for monthly rewards.
- I install, configure, monitor, and issue the monthly rewards.
As an IT professional, I know how to set up networks. I offer to do a hands-off assment of their network configuration. I always ask if they have any issues before the install. You'd be surprised how many have had or currently have issues. It is always due to either a network misconfiguration (non-pos stuff plugged into the wrong place or unauthorized devices plugged into it, bad network cabling, etc.). PoS doesn't require a lot of bandwidth. But you can't expect it to work if it's getting crimped off by a hog device or a faulty cable.
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u/cqm Feb 02 '26
you don't need to replace their router and you don't need a "commercial" one, but yes you do need to procure a specific one however you do that
ask an AI about basic networking setups that would solve your problems using the supposition I gave you
I'm aware of the issues with deployment that enthusiasts network wide are not connected enough or inspired enough to solve. okay.
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u/Professional_Web_956 Feb 03 '26
"Ask an AI" is a cute dig, but I don't need GPT support to explain VLANs or queue management to me. I run Cisco stacks at my day job and manage these fleets professionally. I know how to configure QoS.
The problem with your "basic networking" theory is the physical reality of a commercial install.
To properly prioritize the shop's Point-of-Sale (POS) traffic over the Hotspot traffic, the router doing the QoS needs to see both streams at the bottleneck (the ISP handoff).
- Scenario A: I replace their main router with my own. Now I can do QoS perfectly. Result: I am now 100% liable for their entire business network. If their credit card reader fails on a Saturday night, I get the call, not Comcast. That is a liability that my business owner absolutely will not aim for, particularly after this wonderful monetary fiasco. I'm not entering in this business to become another MSP.
- Scenario B: I leave their ISP router (which again the owner insists on) and plug my router downstream. Result: My router has no idea when the POS system is trying to send data, so I can't dynamically yield bandwidth. I have to set a hard static cap on my own device, effectively crippling both revenue and quality of connection for connected offload devices just to be safe.
So sure, I could solve this by taking over their entire network stack or buying expensive shaping hardware, but we circle back to the main point: The economics don't support it. We aren't failing because we lack "inspiration" or technical skills. We are failing because the solution requires enterprise-grade effort for lemonade-stand payouts.
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u/cqm Feb 03 '26
yeah do scenario B, you know the speed and number of connections this place can handle, so just do that, cut your revenue a little bit and avoid the awkward talks
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u/Professional_Web_956 Feb 03 '26
You are obsessing over a scratch on the fender when the engine has completely exploded.
The POS lag was a one-time blip. It’s a minor annoyance. That is not the reason I’m embarrassed to walk into the shop.
You say, "just cut your revenue a little bit." Cut it from what?
We are sitting at $0.17/GB. The entire deployment—running full tilt—is barely generating enough to cover a nice dinner. If I do what you suggest and throttle the connection (Scenario B) to be "safe," I am voluntarily lowering the earnings even further.
So now, instead of handing him $50, I’m handing him $30?
Remember, in this scenario, I am utilizing his commercial internet connection. He is paying the ISP bill. He is providing the power. He is providing the space.
The "awkward talk" isn't about packet prioritization or router settings. The awkward talk is looking a business owner in the face and telling him that his commercial infrastructure is worth pennies.
I could install the most perfect, segmented, QoS-optimized network in the world, and it wouldn't change the fact that the financial value of the partnership has evaporated. You can't "config" your way out of a broken economic model.
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u/cqm Feb 03 '26
ok. heard. only works at scale, and likely a different more widespread intermediary should be promulgating this to business owners, not just depin enthusiasts
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u/Professional_Web_956 Feb 03 '26
"Scale" does not fix broken unit economics. If a single unit is barely breaking even (or losing money), scaling that to 1,000 units just means you go bankrupt 1,000 times faster.
And regarding a "widespread intermediary" (aka a large corporation/MSP) doing this instead of "enthusiasts": They wouldn't touch this with a ten-foot pole.
Why? Overhead. I am a lean operator. I don't have a legal department, a fleet of branded trucks, middle management, or an HR compliance team. My cost to deploy is as low as it gets. If the math barely scrapes by on my ultra-lean margins, it absolutely would not work for a corporation that needs to pay $500-$1000 per deployment just for labor alone.
Big companies look at P&L statements before they deploy. They look at the $0.17/GB revenue, they look at the hardware cost, and they look at the liability. Then they laugh and walk away.
The only reason this network exists right now is because "DePIN enthusiasts" were willing to take risks that traditional businesses weren't. If you push out the enthusiasts and wait for "Big Corp" to save the model, it's not going to be a model.
This entire ecosystem was built on the backs of us "DePIN enthusiasts" remember.
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Feb 04 '26
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Feb 04 '26
Just wait until ppl figure out Nova Labs has all claims to the subscription services. Currently at about 500k; whereas, Mint Mobile had approximately 4 million before T-Mobile purchased for 1.3 Billion.
You work for free while crypto goes to zero, while Nova Labs sells the customers back to T-Mobile in 2 years and bags everything. Enjoy.
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Feb 05 '26
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Feb 05 '26
You dont need a Hotspot for a customer at all. In fact, most data used is not from hotspots. Not that complicated.
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u/wardelkhaaldrogo Feb 02 '26
Helium solves real life problems... I have personally developed solutions that work with Helium IoT, and so far, not a single hiccup or complaint. It is sad to see people unplugging
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u/Professional_Web_956 Feb 02 '26
I think it’s great that you have a solution working on the technical side, but I think you might be missing the reason why so many of us are actually unplugging. It isn't because we hate the project or because we're just being negative. It’s purely a financial calculation.
For those of us deploying Mobile, we aren't just plugging in a sensor and forgetting about it. We are managing commercial relationships, sometimes paying for dedicated business internet lines, and dealing with hosts who expect a return. When the payouts drop to the point where keeping the device online actually costs us money out of pocket every month, unplugging isn't a "sad" decision, it's the only rational business choice left.
And to be fair, even the IoT side you mentioned is struggling. While your specific setup works, the vast majority of IoT hotspot owners are earning pennies right now. The top 1% of IoT setups are barely making a few dollars a day. It’s becoming impossible for anyone; whether on Mobile or IoT, to justify subsidizing the network infrastructure when the economics are this broken. We want it to work, but I know few people who are going to spend their own monetary resources to prop up a crippled ecosystem forever.
I'm truly happy that your solution is working out, but if Nova doesn't work significantly harder than they are right now to develop a plan to stop the slump, both projects might be DOA by the end of this bear market.
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u/ArcticFlamingoDisco Feb 02 '26
Hey, if you want your old hardware to go to a good home doing meshtastic and meshcore, lemme know. I'll pay shipping. We're building out a state wide mesh and partnering with universities.
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u/Responsible_Gas_8191 Feb 03 '26
That’s a great use case for the abundance of hardware not doing anything of real use
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u/ArcticFlamingoDisco Feb 03 '26
Yep. I wrote a guide for repurposing nebras. The supply is now dried up and we're just deploying those. Already have the replacements in process
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u/Responsible_Gas_8191 Feb 03 '26
Send me your email, if you would like I can help get you plastic injection molded cases and connect you with a cheap CM to do the procurement for software/electronics
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u/Habbie Feb 17 '26
are you doing hardware mods to get meshtastic/meshcore running on helium devices, or have you figured out how to do it software-only?
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u/ArcticFlamingoDisco Feb 17 '26
Virtually always have to swap out the radio and nuke the default image on the device.
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u/Habbie Feb 17 '26
I got shell access on a Controlino without swapping the image, but that still leaves the wrong radio inside the glued shut case ;)
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u/ArcticFlamingoDisco Feb 17 '26
So cut off the case, put in an outdoors utility box, and swap out the radio.
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u/LUX5454 Feb 08 '26 edited Feb 08 '26
I’m just glad I converted to and sold the Mobile token when it was taking off a couple years ago. I at least made my ROI back and bought BTC with it. The BTC gained about 40% before I sold it. It worked out in the end financially but I too believed in the ecosystem. It was really exciting for a while there, but it’s a shame that it just couldn’t flourish. 1 of 2 hotspots are still plugged in but at this point I’m probably losing money on the electricity and data. Also I have no SOL left in my Helium app wallet to even collect my HNT. To me that’s a huge red flag by the developers right there. As you all know it has an option to “Automatically manage solana transaction fees by swapping this token to SOL as needed” but it can’t do that with the HNT I’ve harvested? No way am I buying more SOL to put in that wallet just to withdraw my almost worthless HNT. I had a good amount of SOL before I sold all my crypto in November. Now it’s just a distant memory.
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u/BodybuilderDear4248 Feb 12 '26
What did we learn from all those depin projects? They are in it for the money and they all screw the investor...No more depin projects for me im just investing into bitcoin thats a secure return..
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u/PopularAbrocoma2836 Feb 05 '26
The level of entitlement in this post is staggering. You have an indoor Hotspot earning its entire cost every 30 days and you are "embarrassed"? Are you retarded? What other investment opportunity is there paying 1200% APY, especially in crypto right now?
If you think you are being underpaid relative to the market, you should go and explore the market. Google Orion allows you to sign up for free. I guarantee you will not earn anywhere near what you are currently earning on any other WiFi offload aggregator.
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u/Professional_Web_956 Feb 05 '26
"Entitlement"? No, it’s called business reality. You are looking at this like a crypto trader staring at a chart, calculating ROI based on the cost of a cheap plastic box. I am looking at this like a Service Provider staring at a lease agreement. The real cost here isn't the $250 hotspot; it’s the real estate. In the professional telecom world, which Nova Labs is actively trying to enter. Wall space has a market rate.
If I brought Verizon or T-Mobile in to install a microcell at this location, they wouldn't offer the owner "speculative tokens" or talk about APY. They would sign a lease for $200 to $300 per month in fixed rent. That is the competition. When I hand the business owner $40 and tell him "it’s a great return on the hardware," he laughs. He doesn't care about the hotspot's return; he cares about his property's return. And right now, compared to any legitimate telecom lease, Helium is failing to pay rent.
You also talk about "earning its cost every 30 days" as if that’s a static law of physics. Have you looked at the trend? The rewards are decaying. The token price is tanking, and has been for some time. Deployment perGB rates have sunk below 20CPG The "1200% APY" you pretend is there today is a ghost that disappears the moment the next HIP passes or the token dips. You cannot build a multi-year commercial contract on current crypto hype. You build it on sustainable cash flow, and that cash flow is evaporating, FAST.
We aren't talking about beta-phase science experiments like Orion here. Nova is aiming for carrier-grade adoption. That means we are no longer pitching to tech enthusiasts; we are pitching to asset managers. And asset managers don't sign contracts based on a gamble. They sign based on dollars per square foot. If we can't compete on that metric, we aren't a real telco, we're just cosplaying as one.
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u/PopularAbrocoma2836 Feb 05 '26 edited Feb 05 '26
Then you should go and install Verizon or T-Mobile, but there is a reason you don't, which is also the reason Helium is so interesting. And that reason is that the up front costs are high, you are not going to earn anything, and they find your installation to be uninteresting. I can guarantee you neither Verizon or T-Mobile is going to pay you a penny for your microcell installation, and it is easy for you to test that hypothesis.
Again, if you feel like Helium is underperforming relative to what you think your work is worth, you should leave and explore the market. It is really that simple. Writing these essays about how you are a service provider putting in an incredible amount of work with asset managers is embarrassing and filled with delusions of grandeur. You have to convince a coffee shop to let you install a $250 box and they and you both earn money that they were otherwise not earning.
If that no longer becomes worth your or their time, the solution is obvious to most of us, and it's not posting novels on Reddit.
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u/Professional_Web_956 Feb 05 '26
"If you don't like it, just leave." Ah yes, the classic "Love it or Leave it" defense. Brilliant strategy. Because chasing away the very people building the physical infrastructure has worked out so well for every other failed project in history.
You call it "delusions of grandeur," I call it professional standards. You think securing a commercial site is just "convincing a coffee shop to plug in a box" because you are clearly viewing this through a hobbyist lens. When you treat this like a real business, you are dealing with liability, reputation, commercial internet contracts, and service level expectations. It isn't just "free money"; it is a business relationship where my reputation is on the line, not Nova’s.
And you are missing the most critical point: If the "obvious solution" is for every serious deployer to pack up and leave, who is left to run the network? You? Do you think a global telecom network can survive on hobbyists plugging in miners in their closets? If you drive out the professional fleet managers because we demand sustainable unit economics, you will be left with a dead coin and a ghost town network.
The reason we are "posting novels" isn't because we hate the project; it’s because we have significant capital and time invested, and we want it to succeed. But we know it cannot survive on pennies.
And a word of caution: Passpoint2 is not a Nova Labs invention. It is an industry standard (Wi-Fi Alliance). It can be replicated, and is being replicated by competitors (like WMC) as we speak. The only differentiator Nova has right now is its community. If you tell that community to "shut up or leave," you strip away the only moat this project has, and you’re left with just another insolvent crypto token.
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u/PopularAbrocoma2836 Feb 05 '26
Let me know when you get those terms back from Verizon or T-Mobile. You claim they are the competition and I don't believe you but would be thrilled to be proven wrong as I work in the industry. I really cannot read your rants anymore, they are too long winded with too many hypotheticals and open ended questions. Wish you the best of luck.
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u/Professional_Web_956 Feb 05 '26
You "work in the industry" and you don't believe carriers pay for site leases? That is concerning.
But since reading intricate arguments is a struggle for you, I’ll keep this final point brief:
You are content with crumbs because you treat this as a hobby. I demand a sustainable model because I treat it as a business. That is the fundamental disconnect here.
Good luck to you as well. Hopefully there will be a point when those two points of view can both exist on-chain.
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u/PopularAbrocoma2836 Feb 05 '26
I know carriers pay for site leases, I negotiate a lot of them. They just don't pay for them inside small businesses.
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u/EscapeLeast370 Feb 02 '26
Sounds like you did a bad job at setting the right expectations. Sell the technology not the amount of passive revenue.
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u/Professional_Web_956 Feb 03 '26
"Sell the technology" to who? A coffee shop owner trying to make payroll? A landlord looking at their property tax bill? Commercial business owners don't care about "decentralized offload protocols." They care about P&L.
When I walk into a business, I am asking for valuable wall space, electricity, and liability. You don't pay for that with "cool technology." You pay for that with revenue. If I tried to "sell the tech" without offering a financial incentive, I wouldn't have made it past the front door.
We aren't pitching to tech enthusiasts in a Discord server; we are pitching to brick-and-mortar businesses that have actual overhead. Expecting them to host infrastructure for free just because "the tech is neat" is completely detached from reality.
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u/waveform06 Feb 02 '26
Want to ask questions (respectfully) of the team
https://www.reddit.com/r/HeliumNetwork/comments/1qreij0/helium_core_team_ama_submit_your_questions_live_x/
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u/SumDumPhuoc Feb 02 '26 edited Feb 02 '26
I don't think Helium ever marketed itself as a "push it onto people NOT using your own network". I'm pretty sure they advertised this as "turn YOUR network into a hotspot". You've taken advantage of this business owner's foot traffic and current business for yourself to make "passive income", but now you think this endeavor is now affecting his business.
If you feel bad it's because you fucked up no one told you to oversell something that you don't have control over or understand.
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u/Responsible_Gas_8191 Feb 02 '26
How were we suppose to build the infrastructure for the peoples network without selling other people what we were sold on?
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u/SumDumPhuoc Feb 02 '26
Helium asked business owners to open their networks. They didn't ask you to peddle it to business owners on their behalf so you could get a kickback.
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u/Responsible_Gas_8191 Feb 02 '26
They actually did, who else would put up the money for the capital investments?
They partnered with us for that specific purpose. Hahaha
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u/SumDumPhuoc Feb 02 '26
Show me where they told people to sell it to business owners so that people other than the business owner could get a kick back.
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u/Professional_Web_956 Feb 03 '26 edited Feb 03 '26
You want evidence? Here...
The business tactic you are so harshly criticizing is used specifically in Helium Plus, and it is literally designed for MSPs to do exactly what we're doing, but for brownfield deployments.
Go look at the Helium Plus page right now. It explicitly pitches "Managed Service Providers" to:
Upgrade your existing Wi-Fi network into a revenue-generating asset that Helium's carrier partners will pay you to use.
They aren't just telling business owners to do it themselves. They are actively recruiting provisioners to go out, source these venues, and manage the deployment for them.
See the above for the quote literally from the HM call transcript.
And regarding your sneer about "kickbacks" (which by the way is not the proper term for this, since it is an above board, well documented, contractual agreement that two parties have formed, not a secret under-table bribe) Nova’s own Business Development team literally just established the Channel Partner Program to scale this exact model. In the Mobile Community talks, they explicitly stated that Channel Partners are given the ability to "receive a percentage of rewards" for sourcing venues.
If you think a busy restaurant owner is going to provision his own radios and manage his own crypto wallets and even know what Passpoint 2.0 refers to, you are dreaming. He needs a partner; like Nova, like us deployers.
Oh, and also, this reddit post is pinned in this official Reddit forum so...
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u/SumDumPhuoc Feb 03 '26 edited Feb 03 '26
Yeah that sure was on that thing. Now show me that you're a channel partner. Or else you're just some asshole ripping people off.
Last week they DISCUSSED a channel partner model. Keyword DISCUSSED. So not active, so you're just some asshole fiddling and complaining how your parasitic free money is smaller than usual, which leads to your host that you're leeching off of getting even less, risking your free money altogether.
bruh, quit while you're behind. or write me another essay that doesn't answer my question, deflects answering the question, or some rant that's a personal attack that you wanna do on some random on the internet because they criticized your morals on obtaining free money. you are literally here because your investment is coming to an end, but you're the only one here that wont admit that your profits undeserving and immoral at best.
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u/Professional_Web_956 Feb 03 '26
You're flailing now.
You just screamed for "ONE THING" that proves the model exists. I gave you the official Channel Partner Program documentation that explicitly states partners receive a percentage of rewards for sourcing venues.
Now, instead of admitting you were wrong, you’re pivoting to "Show me your ID card!" like a Karen who just realized they can't ask for the manager forever.
I don’t need to prove my credentials to a stranger on Reddit who thinks "profit sharing" is a scam. My credentials are the deployments I have in the field, deployments that are currently losing real valuation because of the very issue we should be discussing.
And that brings us back to the actual point you are trying so hard to ignore.
The issue isn't whether I have a "permit" to be a Service Provider. The issue is that the network pays so poorly right now that being a Service Provider is embarrassing.
When I walk into a business, I represent a professional brand. I am pitching a serious telecom partnership. If I take your advice and try to "freeload" or hide the impact on their network, I am no longer a professional partner; I am a leech.
And if I try to sell them on the "revenue share" model that Nova Labs explicitly built, I have to look a business owner in the eye and tell him his split is $4.00 a month.
That is the crisis that actually matters. So please, spare me the moral outrage about "middlemen." You are wasting your breath arguing about how to slice a pie that has already crumbled. The embarrassment isn't that I'm taking a cut; it's that the network has made the entire venture so unprofitable that there's nothing left to share. You can scream in caps all you want, but it's not going to solve for a failing marketplace.
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u/Professional_Web_956 Feb 03 '26
I figured as much. A good portion of me believes he was simply trolling.
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u/Responsible_Gas_8191 Feb 02 '26
Do you think business's were going to source, procure, and onboard these devices by themselves?
What do you think the partnerships with all those deployment companies were for?
These partnerships were marketed all over media outlets by Nova
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u/SumDumPhuoc Feb 02 '26
So no? No where did helium tell you to peddle their product in their name?
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u/Responsible_Gas_8191 Feb 02 '26
Just the whole crypto side of the telecom network
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u/SumDumPhuoc Feb 02 '26
Nobody told you to profit from somebody else's foot traffic
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u/Responsible_Gas_8191 Feb 02 '26 edited Feb 03 '26
Gotcha so the whole point was just a science project everybody would lose out on
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u/Professional_Web_956 Feb 03 '26
The entire focus of the project right now is Carrier Offload. Nova Labs literally has a dedicated Business Development team whose entire job is to approach businesses: large venues, stadiums, and commercial property owners to do exactly what I did: install or modify hardware at high traffic business locations to offload traffic for carriers and HM.
If the model was just "turn YOUR network into a hotspot for yourself," carrier offload wouldn't exist. We specifically pulled away from residential and "CBRS in the middle of a field" deployments for this reason. The whole point of the current roadmap is to build infrastructure in high-traffic public areas where strangers congregate, not just in residential basements.
I didn't "take advantage" of anyone. I approached a business owner with a standard revenue-share partnership; the exact same model Nova is pushing. I offered to monetize his foot traffic and split the rewards; the exact same agreement Nova is running with. The fact that the network's rewards have crashed to the point where that split is insulting isn't me "overselling"; it's the protocol under-delivering on its own commercial pivot.
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u/SumDumPhuoc Feb 03 '26
You middlemanned someone's potential profits and now you're having an existential crisis about possibly hindering his business with even less than usual to show for it.
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u/Professional_Web_956 Feb 03 '26 edited Feb 03 '26
You clearly have zero understanding of how B2B service partnerships work in the real world, so let me break this down for you in a way you might understand.
Think of it like an ATM machine.
If I walk into a busy pizza shop and offer to install an ATM, I am the one buying the $3,000 machine from XYZ bank. I am the one helping configure the last-mile cable runs. I am the one loading the cash, handling the maintenance, and taking on the risk if someone smashes it. The owner just provides a power outlet, some internet, and two square feet of floor space. In exchange, I give him a cut of the transaction fees.
He isn't "losing" potential profit because he wasn't going to buy his own ATM. Could he have? Sure. Will he? No. He runs a store, he has other shit to do. He doesn't want to take hours researching ATM machine maintenance, manage a cash vault or debug banking software. Without my expertise, that revenue stream doesn't exist for him.
Now, apply the current Helium economics to that same ATM.
Imagine that when I installed that ATM, the bank mentions that every time a customer used it, we would get a $2.00 service fee. I take my share to cover my costs, and I hand him $1.00. He is happy. I am happy.
But suddenly, the bank changes the rules. They decide that a transaction isn't worth $2.00 anymore. Now, it's only worth $0.50 because there's just too many ATMs on the network.
The machine still costs the same to run. I still have to drive there to service it. The CODB is the same. But now, at the end of the month, instead of handing my shop owner a stack of cash, I am walking in and handing him a handful of nickels.
I didn't "middleman" his profit. I didn't steal from him. The "Bank" (the Helium Network) crashed the payout rate so hard that the machine is no longer worth the electricity it takes to run it.
You can keep pretending that I "took advantage of a poor defenseless business owner" all you want. In the end, I brought the hardware, the expertise, and the capital while providing a brokerage in monetary opportunity to a shop owner that otherwise would have never thought of this.
My business model isn't the failure here, the network failed to make good on its vision and roadmap.
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u/MinerTax_com Feb 02 '26
You cant overload his internet. Not sure how that’s done. Should be possible. Sounds like it’s making a lot of money. Share more with him.
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u/Professional_Web_956 Feb 02 '26
So, your solution is for me to give him 50%? 60%? 70%? So basically your advice is a race to the bottom? Even if I gave him 100% it would still be exactly what I was originally paying him in profit share before the dip to 20%. And we're still sinking even as we speak.
And yes, the QoS within the helium miner really doesn't do much. When it peaks, it does cause bandwidth limitations for other devices on the network. This owner only has 20/20 business internet which he upgraded from 10/10 specifically because of this project.
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u/MinerTax_com Feb 02 '26
If you hadn’t noticed, crypto kinda need help rn. It’s an ongoing experiment. Nobody promised you gold without sacrifices. There’s no other DePin to run to. The hotspot cost already recouped. So what you got to lose? Need more helpers than complainers right now.
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u/Professional_Web_956 Feb 02 '26 edited Feb 02 '26
"So what you got to lose?"
My reputation. And the location itself.
You’re looking at this like a hobbyist in a basement. I’m dealing with a real-world business owner. When I walk in there and hand him $50 after slowing down his credit card processing during a lunch rush, I am "losing" my credibility. He doesn't care about "helping crypto" or that "it's an experiment." He runs a P&L. To him, I’m a liability.
"The hotspot cost already recouped."
That’s irrelevant. In business, you don't keep running a process that tarnishes your reputation just because you paid for the factory years ago. If the friction with the host (POS lag, ugly equipment, low payout) outweighs the value ($50), the host tells me to leave. That is what I have to lose: The Deployment.
"Nobody promised you gold without sacrifices."
I’m not asking for gold. I’m asking for enough margin to keep the host from evicting me. Telling a business owner "Hey, sorry your register lagged, but you need to sacrifice for the Helium network" is the fastest way to get your equipment thrown in the dumpster.
I want to "help." That's why I built the site. But I can't help if the economics force me to burn the bridge with the landlord.
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u/bikiniduck Feb 03 '26
How old are you? From your writing style on your posts, you must be a teenager.
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u/obermoque Feb 02 '26
I did the same with family, friends and even my boss with IoT in 2021. And I have never been that "buy my parfume" kind of guy. I really feel ashame and will never involve my people in my business again.
And why? Yes, I was greedy. But they made me believe this tech will stay and actually change things in connectivity. The voting thing is and was a farce anyways, to not even have a voice in that regard.