scams require the existence of victims.
No. An attempted scam with 0 victims is still a scam.
a scam implies a fraud or swindle, which requires a victim. that is, you can't defraud "nobody."
if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around and all that.
No. What you're describing is a target, who may or may not become a victim. A scam is a scam even if it's unsuccessful and doesn't defraud anybody, or if it defrauds somebody who you think deserves it.
this tangent is really diverging from the point:
my comments were about the DT system becoming increasingly useless because of all the recent emphasis on tagging people for harmless and petty shit.
but okay, let's see what the dictionary says.
scams involve fraud or deceit. both
fraud and
deceit require the existence of another person---the victim who is "defrauded" or "deceived." if fraud or deception doesn't occur, then all a potential scammer did was think some thoughts. this is why legally
fraud torts can't exist without a victim. the juxtaposition in that article between "fraud" and "hoax" points out the requisite factors:
A hoax is a distinct concept that involves deliberate deception without the intention of gain or of materially damaging or depriving a victim.
anyway, these ICOs and their bounties are not being materially damaged. they're not victims. in fact, they're lining their pockets (and probably exit scamming) on the backs of these
horribly untrustworthy scamming shitposters. the idea that vaporware cash-grab ICOs are honorable and are "being cheated" employs such upside-down logic that it's painful. and they are the root spam problem too; they provide all the incentive and reinforce the terribly low posting standards. the bounty hunters are just a symptom, yet they get all the ire. the logic here is just totally backwards.