I totally agree that there should be no support for these kinds of projects but in the short term Ripple seems to be a good investment, to a lot of people, since it has the backing of the current establishment.

A good investor should judge when something is overvalued and should not invest in that case. For now Ripple seems to be a decent investment especially for people who are not really looking to change the world but just make a quick buck. Of course there are still pitfalls like the fact that it is pre-mined and the centralization issue.

At the point where there is a proven technology that rivals the current established financial institutions we can all agree that projects like Ripple will not be supported since there will be a clear alternative but in the short run I am not aware of a project like this. A lot of them are on the way but nothing that is battle tested as of yet.