Sure, for a couple of weather stations which by definition are usually well spaced apart so even LW coverage becomes questionable. But for having CO2 sensors in every classroom in every school as required by Dutch law, or any other situation where many sensors are needed in a relatively close (up to a couple of km) area, LW beats cellular all day every day. So not really expensive as a half decent cellular modem costs me ~€30 whereas a LW radio + MCU costs ~€6.
Perhaps you should have come back and asked here rather than struggling for the last couple of years - in that time I’ve done at least two webinars for TTN on this exact topic (check them out on YouTube) and I’ve the most quoted (at me) code on the forum for free here: GitHub - descartes/TheThingsStack-Integration-Starters: Starter / Template code for various The Things Stack (v3) integrations. Any questions on this stuff please open a new topic, not here.
In the two years whilst you’ve been away, I’ve formed a symbiotic relationship with another forum member and we’ve gone on to “build stuff”, me doing the integration & dashboard, that’s just won an award: Community prize for Dutch school/student project "Measure your living environment"
So some might say that the community works, it’s just that LW is no longer the “Next Big Thing” so there’s less apparent activity.