I would not go so far as to say Dash governance model has scam attributes, due to masternode operators playing a role in the key decision making process.
In some crypto projects the power lays with miners (Bitcoin Cash for example, just look at the latest hard fork where miners have a lot of power and directly influence the direction of that project).
With Dash the power lays more in the hands of masternode operators, who vote on budget proposals and vote on decision proposals that can directly influence the direction of the Dash project.
In other crypto projects like Proof of Stake, the power is in the hands of those holding the coins, and i am sure there are also crypto projects that have the power concentrated in yet another way.
Dash is certainly not a scam but there are some users posting in this thread claiming that was a scam when it started out and to some degree it has scam-attributes because of the voting power masternode operators have with regards to the direction Dash will go down because of them playing a role in the key decision making process. Dash is no scam.
Actually,i am not a Dash fan. But i find it somehow inaccurate to judge the value of a coin only by its price in the market. If you invested in Dash few years ago then you should now become a millionaire after the 2017 crypto boom when the price of Dash surpassed 1$. The opposite would apply if you bought Dash at that ATH price.
I don't think that Dash is a scam or a plan to scam anybody even i have other critics over it.