Right. So for clarity's sake, are you implicitly suggesting that all religions that accept money are "scams" even though billions of people can readily testify that they find it to be immensely beneficial?
That's an exaggeration but sure. I get that you're trying to argue that everything needs to be expensive because how else would they keep the lights on, but just by looking at the size of the multiple Scientology hubs despite it costing money to reach true salvation is pretty telling. You'd think they'd be handing out fee waivers left and right but nope. I can't even find any online. (But that could just be me.)
And I would like to point out that people falling for a scam doesn't change my opinion of it being a scam. I feel no need to convince anyone out of that scam, but it's still a scam. "You think SO MANY PEOPLE are wrong?" is not a convincing argument because yes. Yes, I do.
How did you arrive at this conclusion? Last I checked there is no "fee" to become a Mormon or Scientologist. The Mormon church has never kicked out a member for not paying tithing, and neither have I heard of a Scientologist being kicked out for not paying for services that they offer.
I
almost started looking deeply into Scientology a while back by taking the personality quiz but there was no way to take it for free, which is a key starting point to my understanding. Just to make sure that I wasn't being unfair, I just looked into it and I found
this Business Insider article about the costs long term. I even double checked their claims like how expensive the books are and according to Scientology.org, it's an expensive religion. You don't get kicked out (never claimed you do), but you don't go far at all within it if you aren't taking the classes. The best I could find pushing against the fact that it's expensive is from a pro Scientology blog that the government views Scientology as a nonprofit therefore it can't be money grubby, but that's laughably weak.
If you are assuming that Scientologists are paying for peace of mind, personal growth and self-improvement, then what are you assuming that people are paying psychologists/ therapists for? Because by the metric that you've provided it seems that ALL of therapy and all of religion (that accepts monetary payments) could also be considered 'scams.' Which is all well and good; there's nothing inherently wrong with considering religion and therapists to be a 'scam', so to be clear I'm not trying to criticize your views so much as I'm trying to better understand them.
You excluded the community part but I guess that wouldn't make sense with the claim you're making. Therapists aren't trying to trick you into a cycle. Any decent therapist will tell you that at the end of the day, their job is for you not to feel the need to come back. Your relationship with therapy should be sort of be a one and done type of deal in the long run. Psychologists are doctors. I'm going to assume that you aren't putting medicine and religion on the same playing field because the argument of "How is Scientology a scam but medicine isn't?" will absolutely make me drop this conversation. You seem like a cool dude, don't make that argument.
For a more blunt look into my perspective: I don't think religion should have any type of group interpretation aspects to it. As in, I don't think religion should support a group of people coming together about it. I think religion should be extremely personal and private. Therefore, I am against the idea of any religion needing a church because I'm against the idea of people going to a church in the first place. Inherently, most religions are a scam because most religions emphasize community in proper participation. I am agnostic, but I was raised in a household that was Mormon but transitioned into what I can only call 'vanilla Christianity'. (Christianity has so many branches that I have no idea what this would be.) I was never that into religion and that was respected in my household. I myself briefly identified as Hindu, but no longer feel comfortable claiming to be that either. I, despite how I might've framed myself, am not anti-religion in the sense that I think religion is bad and everyone should stop, because religion is extremely personal and not a place for others to comment on in that sense. I'm critical of religion but I do understand that to each their own. For every person like me who thinks religion should be purely private, there's someone who thinks religion is purely public, and that's not a debate either side would be able to win.
Now in terms of do I think all religions are
cults, no. Scientology is a cult, Mormonism is a cult, pure Catholicism is a cult. What makes a cult a cult is the aspect of
indoctrination or mind control to put it bluntly. I do think that every religion has followers that are more than willing to implement the tactics of indoctrination, but I don't think that many of the religions have aspects of indoctrination that are actually written within the text they follow.
After writing all of that out, I do want to say that despite my negative view of Scientology, I do not think that people who follow Scientology are inherently bad because of their religion. I respect you and I acknowledge that the dismissive comment I made at the start of this conversation implied negative things about you. I apologize for that (though I do retain the sentiment that being a Scientologist requires a very disposable income). I have no intent on convincing you out of your religion or shaming you for it.
A number of religious/ spiritual organizations turn a significant profit; for an example, according bloomberg, the Mormon church takes in 8 billion dollars in tithing each year, and yet accusations of being a 'cult cash' or 'scam' often seem exclusive to Scientology, when in fact the same such allegations can be voiced against virtually any major religious group. 
