In US. I can go to the store and grab a mini split for under $750 and install it my self. People get AC without heat because you have to get an emergency heater with it in most parts of the country anyways. Gas is cheaper as a general rule so it’s far more cost effective to get AC with a gas furnace. Places in Cali and Texas we just put in cooling only because they don’t ever use heat. Heat pumps are more the norm nowadays here with hybrid heat so your emergency heat can still be gas. In those below freezing times
1 is not plausible, you can’t believe that all rich companies are money hungry capitalists that only care about their bottom line, then also say that they are going to spend more money they are greedily hoarding to help out their rich friends. That’s the only way that 1 would be plausible, so you have to have that dichotomy of a thought process to believe it.
Sure lots of heat pumps can “heat” that low, you’re not getting very much heat though. I’d be surprised if they don’t have some kind of supplemental heat source. I didn’t see any actual engineering documents to see what the outputs are at those ranges. To heat a space you should have output temps minimally in the low 90F range. Some of the heat pumps now are heating the refrigerant seperately in those low temp conditions. So kind of cheating.