Thank you for providing an example. It's not a "bunch" but still. Could you explain why did you use word "regrettably", is it a bad thing these projects exists?
I think @detaro says 'regrettably' because of the distaste many have about ICOs and the hype related to them. However, I too would like to hear from @detaro on this.
Pretty much, yeah: pushing actual messaging over a blockchain is just horribly inefficient and I don't see it being a workable idea, so it seems dishonest to me to widely promote it and collect money for it.
Other related things are fine: e.g. mapping public keys to human-readable identifiers like a nickname is a good match to what a blockchain is good at, I get why people like the idea of cryptocoin-payments in a messenger platform, ... Still leaves the general concern of "does this really need it's own coin with an ICO and hype", but at least the ideas make some sense there.