To answer the question in your subject, it's a big NO for me, funding ICOs is like simply putting your money into someone else's pockets, enriching him or her while you impoverish yourself.
Your friend seems to have learnt the hard way and he wouldn't be the first nor the last to fall for ICO scams.If he had invested in the bitcoin, he'll have still been in possession of his coin no matter what, whether its a rise or a fall, that's what people need to understand.
Investing in an ICO this days is like giving away the private keys to your wallet, it's no coin/fund of yours anymore when you do so.
ٰIf there will be no ICOs, then there will be no value of Ethereum or another platform where you can build blockchain dapps, then who would like to buy Ethers or another Cryptocurrency? furthermore, If you fund someone, that does not matter where those are gone, because after the ICOs, when any token lists first time on an exchange then the investors make big money, atleast they receive whatever they invested in the ICOs. discouraging ICO will result that there will be no value of such tokens where you can make dapps or build other kind of projects, when there will be no projects, there will be no progress, and people will avoid the blockchain technology, even the bitcoin cannot become mainstream this way.
Additionally your concern regarding those people who spent their precious money on ICOs is not good, cannot be appreciated, because each project has a team behind it. & if you don't know that the early investors of ethereum has made big bags of money, as they have many ethers, (in the Ethereum ICO, one ether was sold at the price of 40-20 cents. Investors who invested around 1 bitcoin received 2000 ether) so those people already had big amounts, at that time when ethereum ICO was began, the price of 1 BTC was around 375-400 USD, and later the investors who just invested 1 btc, made 20 btc (sold 1 ether at the rate of 0.01+ btc) after when it was listed on exchanges) so consider when bitcoin took a jump to $800, suddenly ether got a big dump (traded around 10 cent in around Sep 2014) so the investors who already had big bags, they were launching ICOs and ICOs to filling their wallets, if you think that that people should not create new projects, and they should not fund the ICOs, then you mean to say that only the early investors who already had big bags of ethereum, has the right to launch the ICOs and the newbies, who are purchasing ethereum at todays price, have no right to launch their projects on the blockchain, because if they will spend something, they will be just in lose ? that is not a good idea, early investors who has now big bags should support the new projects instead of discouraging new people.
Crypto has the fortune for everyone, Everyone has the right to raise funds for their projects, businesses, or for anything, It does not mean that if you were the early investor and you had make a fortune, then new people who are entering in the cryptocurrency world, has no right to make a fortune, Just think that the restaurant who early accepted bitcoin by just selling bitcoin pizza at the price of 10K BTC, how much money the owner of that restaurant made ? ) and if you bought bitcoin at the price of $2, and now it is at $10K then you are now a millionaire for sure, but you think that newbies should not be given a chance to make money out of crypto, just you should make it then you will be called only a selfish piece of cryptocraze.