I don't know if I'd say Scopes are controllers after the controllers are instantiated. Scopes are more of a view-model which are, yes, annotated by Controllers.

I don't know if I'd say Scopes are controllers after the controllers are instantiated. Scopes are more of a view-model which are, yes, annotated by Controllers. However, if you put your Controllers on the Scope (via $scope.MyCtrl = this; in the constructor, or via the controllerAs syntax), your controllers are your controllers, placed on the view-model (the scope.) But this is really just semantics at this point. I totally get what you're saying.