Well, yeah, it's climbing because it's a meme, not because of any inherent value in it, but that doesn't make it a scam, nor does it change that putting lets say $100 in bitcoin is pointless compared to putting it in a more volatile but faster growing asset that can make more because while smaller coins can go flying down they can also grow more percentage-wise a lot easier than bitcoin can at this point.

Getting bitcoin really early on would have been good but now, if you put a lot in, that smaller % return is still a lot of money, but if you only have a little bit to put in, the return is not worth tying up the money. Treating it that bitcoin is the only crypto worth investing in for everyone (in some cases, it would be the best option), is basically the same as treating it that "people who can only invest a little bit shouldn't invest". In my case, I'm literally investing the BAT I've made from Brave Browser and then later, a little bit of Steem since I'm powering down over there atm. I have some coins I invested $20 in each and they are now each sitting at about $40. To make $20 off of an $20 investment in Bitcoin, Bitcoin would need to rise to $150000 (all Australian dollars). It's too high in value already to be a useful asset for micro-investment or one that would give any substantial amount of return.

Altcoins are more likely to outright die and not ever rise again, because bitcoin is not going to drop completely anytime soon, but they're not scams and not everyone is in the financial position that investing in bitcoin would be that useful to them.