never underestimate the global nerddom

Pretty cool project: https://meshtastic.org/docs/introduction/

That said, it seems to me that Meshtastic isn't altruism? If I want to participate in the mesh, I need a LoRa device running myself?

I know Berlin has quite a large Meshtastic community and there are a lot of nodes. There is someone on Trust also active and this summer they organised a location-based LARP on Templehofer Feld. The community installed a powerful node on Teufelsberg with great range. This is nice and portable, battery + meshtastic node in one: https://heltec.org/project/meshpocket/