interesting discussion. just some brief reflections:
1) do we need a business model really for the TTN as such? the cost being so little I'd think the exchange value is in the additional services.
2) open vs openish. that's much more than only free of charge access!
a) consider privacy and encryption. only if we manage to assure end-to-end encryption can we avoid a more serious big brother like society. Those sensors represent loads of personal details and Edward Snowden c.s. have shown to us that governments around the world are pressing for weak or no encryption and backdoors.
b) and what about who controls the infrastructure? who defines which services one can connect to from the app portal? and under what conditions.
Maybe that's a few reasons we should also be careful with our terminology and explain the problems with the "ish". I my analysis at the Free Knowledge Institute I have taken it from a Commons angle: we can argue that there are four levels of Commons. See Analysis here.
Apart from 1) the hardware designs, 2) the LoRa standards and other protocols, 3) the Free Software / Open Source to run the network, there is the network itself (number 4).
The network is set up by peers as a commons based resource, for now governed along the lines of the TTN Manifesto. Maybe locally communities will set up associations, foundations and other (preferably) democratically organised community organisations. True, those might noit be necessary, and just a mailing list and/or forum might be sufficient, but I can see that it might be a useful organisational method. That could provide useful to agree on how to manage the network locally, i.e. gateways, routers, portals. This might be useful for the different stakeholders (public, business, civil society, citizens, ...) to consensuate decisionmaking. And avoid the easy sale off to an "openish" operator.
my 2 cents,
Wouter