That's the elephant in the room that everyone is ignoring - the entire financial system is a scam. It's rigged in favor of the ruling class, which is why cryptocurrency originally became popular. The difference is that most cryptocurrency schemes are a different kind of scam - one of trickery rather than abject domination, and something you can avoid if you understand enough about how it works. Something that can't be said for traditional financial systems.

The counter point (whether you believe it or not) is that the existing financial system also has benefits over any other political/economic system of resource distribution.

Crypto doesn't have that upside at this time I don't think.

It does. The traditional system reinforces systemic biases. Trustless systems don’t care about system biases. Peer to peer systems route around this.

It was always about empowering the individual.

It's a serious question. Many people question whether their industry is 'good'. People such as accountants and some lawyers. But that doesn't make them 'bad people'. I am saying that how they spend their money is important.