If I can suggest something, then take a look into Reticulum. The barrier to entry is higher, the apps and ecosystem is not as polished, but you can see that people are doing _stuff_ with it. The openness, and the fact that almost everything is available as easy-to-use reference library and documented is really encouraging.

Also it isn't nailed down to LoRa. Sky is the limit when it comes to what could be used as a transport.