Evidently it’s not perfect here but yes, it’s less sketchy, because there’s far worse out there.

All you're arguing is that it's "not the most sketchy" not that it's less sketchy than the average. And you're offering no proof or example of that either.

If you're going to get hung up on technical details, note that GP didn't ask whether it's less sketchy than average, just whether it's less sketchy.

Finding concrete proof or examples is obviously hard in this subject matter (how are you going to prove something as abstract as sketchiness), but here's one observation: predatory conferences mostly only exist outside the West. To be even more concrete, two of the most infamous predatory publishers (WASET and OMICS) are based in Turkey and India respectively. You generally won't find something nearly as sketchy in the West.

>two of the most infamous predatory publishers (WASET and OMICS) are based in Turkey and India respectively

Well, as an Indian postdoc working in the US, I can speak to some of these sketchy behaviours. In terms of the predatory publishers, my Indian institution had its own filters, and most labs have their own as well. For example, for a while we had an institutional restriction on submitting manuscripts to conference proceedings, with the justification that the hard time limit equals substandard peer review. In addition, for the longest time we were not allowed to submit anything to open source journals, with similar justifications. Publishing in a journal with an IF < 8 was also frowned upon, and the institution would not cover publication expenses. AFAIK other institutions had similar filters for publications. I would regard my institution as a decent, but nowhere near the best in my field in India.

Who does publish in these predatory journals? Smaller, less well funded universities with desperate students, ever since the government mandated first author publications as a requirement for receiving PhD degrees.