To encourage one another to stay positive, they cite exciting corporate partnerships such as... @Goodyear Tire & Rubber.
Maybe I can help them perform a sanity check before they pin their hopes on this promising "customer".
Believers of the Goodyear/Helium partnership envision a future where your vehicle connects to the internet... through its tires.
Inspiring.
I'd hate to burst their bubble that a Goodyear Ventures investment with the goal to "learn about new mobility" isn't proof of real demand.
To learn more, I watched this presentation by @AbhijitCVC of Goodyear Ventures:
Does Goodyear have a plan for giving tire sensor devices their own internet connection?
Not really, says Abhijit: "Assume we have the right sensors, and we don't yet..."
This slide presents Goodyear's next steps. They're going to "explore use cases", i.e. they don't yet have a clear one.
When you're pinning your hopes on a vague, futuristic-sounding slide from a corporate VC, you're on track to be a #BloatedMVP of Goodyear Blimp proportions.
I'm not spreading gratuitous FUD here. I've just heard enough startup pitches to call out the #HollowAbstractions.
The reality on the ground is that Goodyear has no compelling use case. Neither does Helium's LoRaWAN network to date.
@AbhijitCVC .@AbhijitCVC thanks for the pic of your team gluing a sensor to a tire, but the key question that remains unvalidated is whether a car's tires should be architected to connect directly to the internet using a decentralized network of LoRa hotspots.
.@Helium, often cited as one of the best examples of a Web3 use case, has received $365M of investment led by @a16z.
Regular folks have also been convinced to spend $250M buying hotspot nodes, in hopes of earning passive income.
The result? Helium's total revenue is $6.5k/month
Members of the r/helium subreddit have been increasingly vocal about seeing poor Helium returns.
On average, they spent $400-800 to buy a hotspot. They were expecting $100/month, enough to recoup their costs and enjoy passive income.
Then their earnings dropped to only $20/mo.
These folks maintain false hope of positive ROI. They still don’t realize their share of data-usage revenue isn’t actually $20/month; it’s $0.01/month.
The other $19.99 is a temporary subsidy from investment in growing the network, and speculation on the value of the $HNT token.