Are most ICO's scams? Yeah sadly. Are there lots of scams on Kickstarter/indiegogo/etc? Yes sadly.
But an ICO itself isn't necessarily a scam (although I concede 99% of them are)
The problem is that most of them are run by scammers, which do promise profit.
In an ICO, I get a... theoretical security? A kik kin coin that may or may not have value?
You don't back an ICO because its "value will go to the moon", you back an ICO because invents a new way for -- Creators to get paid instead of using advertisements, creative ways to organize some kind of distributed system.
The scam comes from them not completing their promises and leaving with the money and no "product". The coin's value is irrelevant (as long as it isn't 0)