This is really one of the most honest ICOs currently being offered.
In their terms of service:
"the EOS Tokens do not have any rights, uses, purpose, attributes, functionalities or features, express or implied. Although EOS Tokens may be tradable, they are not an investment, currency, security, commodity, a swap on a currency, security or commodity or any other kind of financial instrument. Company’s Use of Proceeds. Buyer acknowledges and understands that the proceeds from the sale of the EOS Tokens will be utilized by Company in its sole discretion."
Because of what they clearly state, it is obviously not a scam. The contract is very clear in what people get. The team is using ETH tokens for the crowdsale because ETH has proven to be a great crowdsale platform. At the end of the crowdsale what people hope they get are EOS tokens in the new blockchain.
Their blockchain is different from the ETH blockchain. And this is where it gets interesting. They are developing a new blockchain that is far more scalable than any blockchain so far, with the added bonus that it is a smart contract blockchain. That is why it will be competing with ETH, LISK, NEM, etc.
The team have built 2 blockchains so far, Bitshares and Steem. This is their 3rd. So you're investing in a team that has successfully built and run 2 blockchains. Bitshares is a Decentralised Exchange (was it the first?) and it works. Steem was their attempt at social media and it works. Both are built on the graphene tech that EOS will run on.
Like all blockchains, graphene is a system of consensus. Graphene works and scales better than any other blockchains by a country mile. The ingeniousness of Steem is that it doesn't need transaction fees to prevent spam attacks like POW blockchains. So Steem users are given Steem for free. You can use Steem, earn money and never have to invest a cent. Similarily EOS users won't have to pay a cent to use the network. It will be up to dapps developers on how to fund or give away for free their services.
Is their ICO unfair to participants? Well maybe. It's impossible to know whether you're getting a good deal when you buy into the ICO. For this reason maybe it's more fair? It's a complete punt. Don't want to punt? Don't. I won't.
The ICO goes for almost a year. In that time who knows what will happen to EOS development or the price of ETH or the whole crypto space. How many ICOs haven't got a working product? Loads if not the majority. How many are going for a quick buck by offering lots of hype and a small window of time to pump the exuberance? Nearly all of them. A small window of time means it creates FOMO. This does not.
I'm going to sit back, wait to see what happens to the price, wait to see what happens with the development and eat my popcorn. The only people missing out here are FOMO traders out for a quick flip.
Any hype associated with this ICO can only be reliant on the history and pedigree of the development team along with how development evolves. That is why it is currently the most honest ICO being offered.