1. Is Ripple a scam?
If you invest, does it really matter for you what people are saying now? I'm more concerned what they will say few months or a year later.
"Buy When There's Blood In The Streets" Baron Rothschild
As nobody is going to a court against Ripple, I think people are motivated by two major reasons saying like this:
1) A similar reason as it was with Bitcoin in 2009-2010
2) Stock Bashing. Details are here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_manipulation
2. Ripple is not decentralized, so if something happens to RippleLabs it will cause a panic
Yes, Ripple is not fully decentralized, and this is similar to many alternative cryptocurrencies which have a central checkpoint aimed to resist 51% attack.
But think again about the cryptocurrencies. I know many examples when something happened to a development team (internal conflicts, external demotivators, etc.) and a coin was left with no support.
What will happen to Bitcoin if Bitcoin foundation suddenly disappear? Do you really believe Bitcoin will succeed in this case?
3. Ripple is 100% premined.
Compare it to QRK or MEC. These coins proposed equal opportunities for mining by everybody. BUT: Nobody knew they should waste their electricity to mine unprofitable coins because some big guys are consolidating and preparing a pump.
If somebody just created a coin, then he minied it hard before it was widely accepted, and then he started a promotion campaign and many other things to rise the price, would you treat it as premined? No! This is not premined. This is a complex pump-n-dump scheme.
In Ripple case, I think it's more fair. The strategy and the plans are well known. US-based company is behind of Ripple, so you can claim them if they lie.
Of course there are some risks, but imagine you buy/mine a coin which is unknown, and you don't really know any background. Which case would you find as more risky?
4. Have you seen riiplescam.org?
Yes, I have. And I'm thinking about their motivation to create this web-site, to pay for the hosting services. I think it's a bit more complicated than described in point 1.
They say: "It’s highly misleading and not what you think it is", "OpenCoin Inc dishonestly markets and presents Ripple as something that it isn’t".
I would question: Why they just don't claim to them?
It's a well know company. There are well known investors behind of Ripple including Andreessen Horowitz, Google Ventures, FF Angel IV, IDG Capital Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Vast Ventures, and Bitcoin Opportunity Fund (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripple_%28monetary_system%29)
Here in Russia and Ukraine we are very familiar to this kind of campaigns. All of them do have the only one goal: Money.
5. Why do you post this?
Okay, I haven't invested much into Ripple, only about 1 BTC as of 10th of December, 2013.
I haven't, because I'm not 100% sure I'm right in my decision.
But: I've learned many things about Ripple so far. And if I'm right, so If I see Ripple price is continuing to grow then I'm ready to invest more immediately.
cryptorally 