for an investor to invest in either, there is no difference. the only way he can make profit is if the project is hyped up and also if the creators know how to pump it properly. they both can get pumped big or fail horribly if the creators have no idea how the manipulation market works.

for the creator to make profit from what they create, obviously creating a shitty ICO token is much easier than creating a blockchain because it requires much less coding and work and also it will have a lot more hype thanks to the fact that despite ICO hype dying it still is a strong one.