Exchanges don't want to risk working with Ripple. Nobody knows how this story might end.
It seems to me that if the situation were really bad, then the coin would be worth nothing. Now ripple cost still something, so there is a chance that Ripple will live
Agreed, they are only avoiding the worst possibility to deal with ripple about that. Ripple can dead anytime when the bad news come from the regulators. The exchange site didn't wanna take the risk to deal with it.
Kraken will always try to follow what already decided by the major exchange sites like coinbase as the largest cryptocurrency exchange site in US.
We know that very well about kraken.