You’re must be joking! Look around, if you look past the bitten apple, there are plenty of perfectly capable devices out there for under $300. In fact, I see plenty of people who are on the street corners panhandling AND using a smartphone.

All of them aren’t. There are cheap touch screen phones. You just don’t get ridiculous features at the price point of $50. The Samsung A30 is a pretty cheap android phone.

No, they actually aren’t essential at all. You can EASILY get by day to day without a phone/touchscreen.