If you start an ICO, you are harmless until you get someone to buy into your token. For the SEC, you are harmless until you collect "millions" of dollars. Otherwise, you are just another one of these small scams that are happening all the time regardless of it using crypto or not.
Unless they do a complete and total eradication program, that will just create a selective environment for tokens that are able to avoid SEC fines. What you’re saying does seem to be the SEC strategy, and it is probably the profit maximizing strategy in the short term. It also requires the least effort; rule making that allowed for regular fee collection instead of sporadic ones might be profitable in the long term, but it would be a complex activity the SEC might not be capable of.
