Agreed, this is the way to go. I've always found it amazing how easily people will create a fragile SPoF dependency on a phone, which can so easily be lost/broken/etc. And more importantly, it's a single point of centralized tracking, so the last thing you'd want is to have everything tied to it.
While I do have a phone, mostly for use as a hotspot, I pretend I don't. I'll always take the course of action of not having a phone.
For myself, I have a cell phone, but I don't have anything on it. No banking. No work apps. Nothing. When work asked me to put an authentication app on my phone so I could sign in using their new authentication scheme, I said, "No, I'm not putting any work app on my private phone. Hard no. Give me something else." So they gave me a little USB thingy to use instead.
If I lose my phone, I lose my contacts (but my carrier has a copy of those), my text history (but maybe my carrier has those too?), and any photos that I haven't copied off. That's it.
Let's pretend you have a smartphone and a computer. Take the phone, and look at every application that you actually use. Make sure that application can be used on a web browser and you have the credentials stored in a password manager. Transfer your cell number to a VOIP service. Find your carrier and cancel your contract or autopay or whatever.
Now shut off the phone, and leave it in a drawer. If you can take out the battery, that's good, but you probably can't without breaking the case.
Put some cash in your pocket if you weren't in the habit of doing that before.
That's it, you're done. Remember to check your mail and messages on the VOIP line from time to time. If you ask the VOIP people to send voice mail to email, that makes it just one thing to check.
No. You can't avoid it. All you can do, with this kind of passive resistance, is delay it for a bit. :/
We (the people) need to push back and be vocal about the stupidity of this trend.
My credit card has a website. I don't store my card on my phone. It's a card, I carry it around in a wallet.
Why would I need an app for a shopping mall? I was in a mall last year, because that's where the LEGO Store is.
I've never used Watsapp.
Gmail is a website. Facebook is a website. Never used a dating app.
I don't need to use an application to get to Burger King, I have feet and cash.
My credit cards work in Italy. Anywhere there's an MC, Visa, Amex or Discover logo, I've got something that will work.
Pushing back starts with refusing to do stupid things just because all your friends are doing it.
You can still live in 2022 without one, although the assumption that you have one gets more annoyingly entrenched year-by-year.
I don't quite know what these single points of failure are, but they must tend not to exist when you have a "hard no--I have no such device" in your back pocket...you can choose services that don't require it, use hardware token 2FA, or something. Somehow, it does still work out to simply not have one, but it seems hard to avoid reliance on it once you've got it, since you don't see a service and think "well, I guess I just can't sign up for that one", but instead whip out the cell phone and comply.