After reading this, I asked a friend who lives in Dubai if he had 30 minutes of his time. He just went to an Al Futtaim shopping mall (One called Al Gurair or similar), and he went inside the shopping mall to Carrefour, Adidas shop, Etisalat shop and a small perfume shop to ask about this as I was curious to know. All of them inside︀ the mall.
According to what he said, none of them accepts cryptocurrencies as payments and︁ even Carrefour confirmed to him that they are part of Al Futtaim but they never︂ got any notification to start accepting cryptocurrencies and they accept many different forms of payments,︃ including different fiat currencies, but not crypto.
I think Dubai is moving in the right︄ direction but from what my friend told me, the reality is different. You can pay︅ with crypto in very few places that are seen more like "wow this place accepts︆ crypto" than actually being used for day to day living