You're a little off base with your history. I make no claim on current usage of the word but saying this was only ever used to wave away obvious and legitimate criticism is not correct.
> In addition to acknowledging that free programs can compete with commercial software in terms of quality, the memorandum calls the free software movement a "long-term credible" threat and warns that employing a traditional Microsoft marketing strategy known as "FUD," an acronym for "fear, uncertainty and doubt," will not succeed against the developers of free software.
> In addition to acknowledging that free programs can compete with commercial software in terms of quality, the memorandum calls the free software movement a "long-term credible" threat and warns that employing a traditional Microsoft marketing strategy known as "FUD," an acronym for "fear, uncertainty and doubt," will not succeed against the developers of free software.
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_documents
edit: and for the record, I'm firmly in the "crypto is a scam" camp