The point of 5g for iot is a special mode with very low battery usage, and a way to connect without needing a SIM card or something similar.

There's value there, but not for consumers. It's large land monitoring where this gets value. Essentially competing with LoRaWan by building out a ubiquitous radio network any sensor can easily connect to.

I think the average person just doesn't realize how much remote sensor equipment infrastructure is out there. Some number of years ago I went out with a friend that worked at natural gas well facilities. I'm pretty sure it was all over lower bandwidth radio networks at that time, but it still transferred all the important data they needed. Such as waste water tank levels, average gas flow, and if any emergency or alarm conditions were occurring. More monitoring and data was always wanted but you had to keep it within particular power and bandwidth limits at the time.