Although our own government really takes the cake in terms of 'gently nudging' people to use their app for authentication:
https://twitter.com/jdhoek/status/1214969536333651968 (in Dutch, but with screenshots illustrating the 'nudging')
The problem lies in the presentation. The styling of the “no smartphone” link is meant to convey that you are doing something undesirable, unsafe, obsolete, weird. That's behavioural nudging. This is fine when the upgrade path is clear and available to all (e.g., “Don't use Internet Explorer, get automatically updating Chrome, Edge, or Firefox”), but it is not fine if the only upgrade path is buying a smartphone and going into an agreement with (foreign) Apple or Google (for the required use of their respective app-stores).
The government should simply not be mandating citizens to own a smartphone just because they can't be arsed to embrace authentication solutions that work on any modern computer (e.g., WebAuthn, or accelerated roll-out of NFC-chip ID-passes and a way to use these with an NFC-reader on any modern OS).
Most banks do try very hard to push you to use their Android or IOS app though. I agree that it is becoming increasingly hard to exist without either an Android or IOS smartphone.
The Dutch government is mandating the use of a stronger level of authentication to access your personal medical data. Currently, the only system that meets this standard is the government Android or IOS app. An alternative is being considered that allows people to use an NFC-reader on any modern computing platform with a suitable driver's licence or ID-card, but this won't be available to every citizen until 2029 due to the renewal cycle of these government issued cards. But even then I can't escape a certain sense of complacency with the government branch developing these techniques; they really seem to want everyone to either get an Android or IOS smartphone, or authorize a relative or friend to manage your digital affairs on your behalf. This latter option is of course geared towards the elderly and the digitally encumbered.
It was possible to participate digitally as citizen in the age of the personal computer even if you didn't get Windows or Mac OS X, but in the smartphone era this freedom does not seem to exist for much longer.