I guess it looks better than the blocky low-bandwidth shots, but I get a bit of an uncanny valley feel with the "face photo puppets"; I'd prefer the more accurate image when I can afford the bandwidth. Avatars are fun though.
You could probably adjust the knobs a bit and control quality. Check out the YouTube video linked by another comment. The bandwidth savings are incredible
I applied to YCombinator with a very similar project back in 2015