The idea is that if you are designing and selling a product, say, a dog collar, you can build Helium(*) capabilities into your product by including a LoRa chip in it. Your customers can then use the Helium(*) network to communicate with the dog collar, for example to locate a missing dog. The fees for this service then flows to the people that have deployed the base stations that facilitate this communication.
To me, this seems like a great way both to build an access network and to get people invested in (and excited in) the process. There are now also a bunch of companies who are taking advantage of this network for their products.
(What we at Thingsquare is doing, and what is discussed in the article, is a little different from what Helium(*) is doing. We are providing a single-purpose network for one system/product, such as a street lighting system. That entire system is connected using its own mesh network, and that mesh network is typically not used for anything but that product's communication needs.)
*: Helium recently changed their name to Nova Labs but I'm not sure exactly how that will effect the naming of the Helium network: https://blog.helium.com/elevating-the-helium-network-with-ne...