Honest question: What are some examples of legitimate uses of shell companies? I don't know enough about this to know "good" cases, I'm only aware of some bad ones. I can come up with tons of "encryption" good/bad examples but I'm coming up blank on good shell companies.

Evading stalkers or organized crime. The state cannot always help

Taxes (normal tax minimization), regulatory compliance (need a local company), liability protection (wall off specific risks), financial liability management (e.g. opco vs holdco debt), etc.

> Honest question: What are some examples of legitimate uses of shell companies?

I have an answer to that, but instead of going down this route, I want to ask you: do you want to defend you right for privacy by coming up with uses that other people would find "legitimate"? Or do you want the right for privacy by default, without having to defend yourself in such a way?

> It's very sad to see commenters here fail applying the same principle to both.

I don't think the two are comparable, and just applying "are technologies to achieve privacy, and both are sometimes abused by bad actors" to both as if that's the start and end of the discussion is surprisingly dismissive.

The 'scope' of encryption is fairly limited in comparison to the scope of a company that can operate under the directorship of a person or persons who are entirely protected from any legal responsibility for the actions of said company.

I may be blinded by personal bias, but I just don't see but the most marginal comparison of these two concepts.

> entirely protected from any legal responsibility for the actions of said company

Huh, because the public can’t look up who the beneficial owners of a company are despite mean the company has any ability to avoid its legal obligations

Every shareholder in a corporation is a beneficial owner of it. Every holder of shares in a mutual fund -- which is a trust that holds shares in corporations -- is also a beneficial owner of corporations.

Officers of a corporation are different from owners. Typically the role of shell corporations is to hide owners.

Using encryption is never "abuse".

If someone who uses encryption also does bad things, the bad things are the problem, not the use of encryption.