I've actually met the guys behind Ripple/ OpenCoin, and even if it's a for-profit company, it's no scam. Their only chance of making money is through the value of XRP / Ripple. They are keeping a good chunk of it the coins for themselves, but they are literally giving it away the rest to people who pay attention to them for the most part. The main purpose is as everyone who looks at it says, it's an IOU system. Ripple is not trying to be a currency even though it will still be seen as one, and it's not trying to replace Bitcoin or anything. It's trying to be a complement and make trading easier (There's an exchanger to complement).

If anything I would think Ripple is trying to cover the transaction fees, but again there are many conspiracy theorists, but the bottom line is: The company's aim is for them to make Ripple valuable and they are giving them away. It's up to you. I say I'm all for free coins and if later down the line they are worth something then that's fine by me. Ripple has no mining and there is no real 51% attack on it because of that. Ripple is not like the alt currencies that you are probably familiar with. This is a startup effort and it has a different way of doing checks and balances. If you want more info on how it works I suggest looking on their site. As for me, I would like to see it succeed, so I'll just watch from the sidelines.

I do find it funny how people always feel they have better insight than people who are putting their time and effort into something. If Google Ventures didn't think it was a good idea/is a scam, then they wouldn't be funding it.