it's a credit token spec, not inherently backed by anything. The affinity scam is in the narrative "it could be backed by Bitcoin". Same with the Liquid "peg".

Hosted Channels / SubSwaps are a different animal, both are services not token specs, and in the case of the swaps are atomically trust-less.

Shitcoin vs. Bitcoin however is binary.

Custody solutions are grayscale to be sure, and for that reason I don't hold any strong opinion on hosted channels. I do lean toward their being a waste of time and unnecessary overhead, but not inherently bad.