The way i see it, i never see ICO/IEO really explaining a real business model, there is the part about the project they want to develop and everything about the token and how to buy it, but what is very rarely if ever seen, is how and when they will have something to sell, how many they are planning to sell, and how this will translate to the token sold in the ICO rising price on the exchange.

If the only thing they have to sell is the token, then it's already sold at the end of the ICO. Even if the project get actually developed and running, it's mostly free of use, or the benefits don't go the developers, fees and block reward go to the block makers, and it's the only fee there is for using a blockchain. Even if the token is fully used in an effective business after, it's not a very good thing that the initial token price is adjusted on speculative value rather than on the price of whatever service are using the blockchain.

It looks more like non profits funding in a way, that people pay to develop a product or another that they think will be useful, and the ROI would be on business that need the blockchain to run, but not on the token itself.

Like if blockchain are used for an energy grid, like a project i made a study for, then the token would be emitted when a producer emit some electricity, and can be transferred to a customer to use this electricity. The total "market cap" at a moment is the amount of energy produced on the grid. And the token price is determined by electricity producer.

With the ICO model, if there is already plenty of token in circulation before the first watt is produced, it mean there will be a gap between the price that the investor expect to sell their token, and the value of the token based on energy cost.

And the way i see it, it would be the same with any model in the 'classic' economy. The same unit cannot be used as hype pumped value to sell as fund rising with perspective of future profits, and then by user of the platform as a way to access a service or acquire assets. So even if the project work and there is a demand for the use of the platform, the token users will be buy will be a different unit than the one sold at the ICO, the price of the token for users will be a completely different model than the model used by people buying on the ICO as a speculative asset.

And if the only product is the token where all the value is derived from hype and speculation, ICO are mostly a one shot thing, you can't hype the same thing twice to sell it with a multiplier, or then it become clearly a scam to begin with.

So it's why i really have hard time to see what people expect and even on which basis to call project that doesn't do x10 in a year a scam, because as far as i know, they never really say how much profits they expect to make, when, and how this is going to translate to lot of people buying the token at several time to ICO price. So it's implied already that there is no sure profits out of it, no garantee of ROI, neither the quality of quantity or time of it.

And if the idea is to fund project to develop a product, then it's more like non - profit fundation, like ethereum or cryptonote or firefox or other open source projects that are non profits organisation, and there is no ROI in the model.