If someone, elderly or not, has to purchase a smartphone and package that they don't want merely to go abroad once a year it would be an expensive hobby.
If I had to get one I can't think what else I'd use the smatrtphone for. I've had 'old-fashioned' pay as you go phones for 20 years and have rarely used them 'in anger'. Mine is hardly ever switched on even when I take it out for the reasons I mentioned in my previous post. I have to leave myself notes to remind me to use it every 90 days or the credit will be wiped. I forgot once and lost about twenty quid.
It might suprise some that there really are people who have no wish to be in constant phone or internet contact all day long. I accept it's different if someone's employment makes it necessary and if others want to for their own reasons obviously I can have no grouse about that because that's their business and nothing to do with me. I would be irked though if i'm forced to buy a smartphone in order to be able to travel abroad.
Desktop computers have suited me for nearly a quarter of a century and I've never felt the need to go online in any other way.
Does anyone have experience or knowledge of a digitally-stored boarding pass becoming inaccessible at check-in because of a malfunction with the smartphone or other technical matter such as a battery issue? My wife and I regularly visited Australia for VFR pre-pandemic and will hope to be able to do so again at some point in the future but I'd have a dread of a digital vaccine passport being 'locked' in my smartphone.