How is it a scam? They are running a service to connect you to other people looking for a relationship. The service works - I found my last 3 girlfriends through dating apps.

I'm not going to message random people's Instagram unsolicited, I would find it annoying to on the receiving end of that. My mother and girlfriend have both complained about receiving unwanted attention from unknown men through social media.

Honestly trying to understand your point of view, do you think dating apps should be free? They definitely aren't free to run.

Presumably your mother and girlfriend don't have their Instagram profiles listed on their dating app profile that say to message them there. Just like there's a very critical difference between a solicited and unsolicited dick pic, if someone is literally asking to be messaged on Instagram, it's different than messaging random people that didn't actually ask to be messaged, especially about crypto scams.

In my post I specifically said "unsolicited". There is of course ethical ways to message people through Instagram, but even in that case it is going to be less efficient then just using the dating app as intended.