Exactly how do I convert tether to USD?

Rather not get robbed/killed when I turn my back.

Because, you know, I imagine Btc to cash exchanging taking place in an empty, poorly-lit alley at night.

Dear valued customer. Our system noticed you are trying to withdraw a large sum of fiat and have triggered an automatic identity check. Bitfinex is a very serious and respectable company so in order to unfreeze your account you must send us a high resolution picture of you holding your passport on your right hand, your driver's license on your left hand, today's newspaper in your mouth and a mirror behind you so that you can stick a Bitfinex™® flag up your butthole that should be clearly visible in the picture too. Our team in our hi-tec Hong Kong office that totally exists will process your request and unfreeze your account within 8 weeks. In the meantime, you can convert your portfolio to Tether™® our flagship cryptocurrency that is 100% backed by US dollars and can also be redeemed at any time in one of our 3 completely legit Taiwanese bank accounts.

Yeah, pretty much the same.

...

Some exchanges (Bitfinex, Kraken, Exmo, Coinut) have USD/USDT pair. Anyone knows if those are real pairs where people trade, or are they run by the exchanges? If those are real, who are the people trading on them? Who needs to trade USD for USDT if you can just use USD?

Anti Semite detected

Convert back to bitcoin withdraw from an atm, theres one at my local laundry actually

>If those are real, who are the people trading on them? Who needs to trade USD for USDT if you can just use USD?
Because although there are a few exchanges which are legit companies based in real countries, none of them banks in those jurisdictions.
One example is Coinfloor. They have an office in London, but their banking is all done in Estonia. So when people try to get GBP out of them, their UK banks sometimes refuse to accept a wire transfer from abroad due to anti laundering laws and fears that the money could be from criminal activity or citizens of countries that currently have sanctions against them.
You will find most exchanges bank in places like Cyprus, Bulgaria, Hong Kong, Virgin Islands etc. It's all good if you have a personal account in those places but if you don't, you will find it's nearly impossible to get large funds from those countries into your account if you're in the US, UK, Germany, China etc.
That's where USDT comes in. The general assumption was "keep your assets in a crypto pegged to the USD and wait until governments and banks around the world become more open to crypto trading so that you can eventually cash out fiat hassle free in the near future".
The problem is people are now having a strong suspicion these reserves don't actually exist.

I understand that, but who are the people who deposit dollars into the exchange, and sell it for USDT? What's point?

People who first open an account need to make an initial investment in order to trade. Some opt to spread that on different cryptos others just buy USDT as a starting point.

Also forgot to add, bitfinex themselves are supposed to sell their non-usdt immediately for USD, but I don't think they've been doing that.
Say you sell 1BTC for $10,000 on bitfinex. In theory, they would get that 1BTC and sell it into the market for dollars and keep those dollars in their reserve.
If you're not a brainlet you should probably already see this doesn't add up and the whole thing is a scam.

Friendly reminder

>In order to cause Tether Tokens to be issued or redeemed by Tether, you must be a verified customer of Tether. No exceptions will be made to this provision.
>Beginning on January 1, 2018, Tether Tokens will no longer be issued to U.S. Persons.

tether.to/legal/