As far as i know STO ( Security Offering ) is a type of investment in form of cryptocurrency but is backed by physical and tangible assets like land, building and machineries unlike ICO that is not so tendecy are developer will just lie that funds are already wasted and nothing to spend and will run afterwards.
Not all STO's are asset backed, those would be asset-backed token, if one takes into a account in where a ICO is located they should take into account consumer fraud laws put in place in order to protect investors from such cases.
Plus it's not in the from of a cryptocurrency as envisioned by Satoshi Nakamoto as cryptocurrency was created and is to be used to disrupt the U.S dollar and government backed bank notes, Security Tokens do not do this as there is a limit on how many people are to be able to hold Security Tokens and who is able to trade it such as having to be traded on a ATS or through a broker thus removing the simple ease of transfering funds freely to anyone similar to a currency.
STO's can't be compared to cryptocurrencies and not all securities are asset-backed.
Someone can come from a country with no regulation on reporting asset-backed token and completly lie on what they own, it really varies by country and people doing deeper research into the project and where it is incorporated.
If we want decentralized system, we should accept scam projects. Because freedom is forcing people to earn money by scamming others. So like a easier way. If we can accept this, the ICO is better. Another system with both features can be indispensable.
Scam project's really do not have to be accepted because even if countries have minor regulations put in place against securities, they still might have consumer fraud protection put in place in which protects investors from fraud.
Either way it's a country by country case, STO's are only really used in the U.S, Canana and E.U it won't ever gain mass adoption just because of the limiting factors in it.
