Any successful scam is very productive in the economic sense. Does that make the scammer worthy of honor and respect? If Bill Gates gives away a billion meals to starving African children then he is 0% productive (no revenue!). Does that make Bill Gates unworthy of honor and respect?
Ken Levine (of BioShock fame) calls this the "circus of value." The disparity between economic terms and their moral/intuitive counterparts grows very large in certain important limits.
I have a different view on scams. I don't think they are productive, even in an economic sense, if one takes the long view.
A person who tries to succeed in life by scamming other people enters a war with reality. He may fool some people, for a certain period of time, but he is forced to constantly be looking over his shoulder. One lie leads to the need for additional lies.
Some people think this is fine, or that it's a price they are willing to pay in order to get away with stealing a million dollars or whatever. It's not worth it to me, however.
As regards Bill Gates, what he does with his money is his business. If he wishes to give it way in that manner, I'm fine with it.
I'd suggest, however, that Bill Gates worked many long hours to earn his money. So if you claim that giving it away is 0% productive, I think you're dropping the context of how he came to have the money in the first place.
I think you need to be more precise about what you mean by "productive" before I can reply. Clearly you don't mean it in the economic sense (productivity is revenue/X where X is some measure of input, e.g. workers or hours). So what do you mean?
Ken Levine (of BioShock fame) calls this the "circus of value." The disparity between economic terms and their moral/intuitive counterparts grows very large in certain important limits.