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.
just this week I saw https://adamant.im
There was a thing called "my echo" (which appears to have failed/been cancelled).