Right, I was just focusing on US access where Coinbase focuses on. And sadly Binance.com is not (easily) accessible from the US. And yeah, Kraken seems to be a better option from that standpoint, just have not built the level of trust that Coinbase has yet. Certainly can get there. And that extra liquidity helps with order execution at times.
US definitely has a long way to go with crypto in general, on both the access and tax side of things. I hope things will improve, but honestly not sure they will any time soon.
And yeah, the XRP side of things was definitely to cover themselves, and not want to be in that potential mess. I think that is a reason for not having Tether too, it comes with historic baggage even if those issues aren't present anymore. USDC makes sense to limit their own risks, even though Tether is still more popular overall.
What sucks is how much influence they have on overall markets. When they back something and have financial interest in it, and add it to their exchange but not its competitors. I would love to see it more open to other ones faster, but not sure it will be.