sometimes, the whitepaper and their pages pull wools over investors' eyes (wannabes actually) and they fall for the wrong ones.
As you said, experience is the best teacher but the lessons are often expensive.
Consider it as "tuition fee"

I paid mine and taking required "continuing education" classes it seems. LOL
I would consider it as a nice way to lose a bunch of Bitcoins. Why should I invest in that when I can make the same amount of money with Bitcoin?