Tether is definitely shady, but everything you stated is wrong.
You can redeem tether for a dollar anytime on their website [1].
Bitcoin has multiple markets on multiple exchanges. Some markets are between BTC and USD, some are between BTC and USDT, some are between BTC and BUSD (Binance's coin that is pegged to USD etc.). The reported price is a weighted average of these markets. It is never just USDT.
There are 7 exchanges on the first page of CoinMarketCap where you can buy Bitcoin with dollars directly [2]. Look for BTC/USD pair.
Their premise is that they are not doing fractional reserves and actually have all user funds available at all times. SAFU is just an additional safeguard and was primarily created to compensate for hacks (it was used one time when Binance was hacked for $50M).
IMO Binance has billions of their own cash reserves (not user funds), based on their activity in the last year (acquision of coinmarketcap for 0.4B, commiting $1B to boost crypto projects and companies etc.. this must be a fraction of their overall worth and in that case, $6B should also not be a huge issue, especially since they can get a lot of goodwill and millions of FTX users).
Binance collects billions of dollars from fees every year and also get money from their external investments (e.g. Binance invested in FTX and sold their shares last year for $2B ($1.5B and $0.5B FTT)).
I got the same quote two years ago when my Macbook Pro 2015 got staingate display issue. It was a few weeks after the "4 years repair period" and they wouldnt replace it for free, even though its a known problem and their fault. I also didnt receive any email notification about 4 year repair period regarding staingate issue. If anyone is sueing in Europe about staingate issue let me know. It was sad to throw away 3000€ machine after 4 years.
How do you search for places once you are at the location? Booking usually doesn't give you the contact before you book. Do you arrange a meeting with AirBnb owners before booking?