In my opinion, just being pre-mined qualifies any other project as a scam. I do not believe that monero is a scam, on the contrary, there are good intentions, but I think that the objective was not achieved and you have to admit that monero has characteristics that make it centralized in the devs.
Discussion
I’m not sure how Monero devs is more or less centralized than Bitcoin devs. I wouldn’t call all blockchains with a pre-mine a scam but it certainly reduces the decentralization and impact the store of value properties.
Are you impying Monero was pre-mined? Or just speaking generally about crypto?
Monero is FOSS. Anyone is free to leave, join, or make their own network fork. All users currently on the latest fork are voluntarily using it because they value the upgrades, devs, and community of users. If not, they would sell and dip out. No one could stop them from doing that. Aren't you guys about free markets?
Imagine the real world worked like that. Everyone was forced to be compatible with old tech like CDs and could never progress. If you and a few others want to use CDs that is fine, but no one is obligated to be compatible with you for eternity at their own expense.