Landlines

LandlinesYes or no?
Our current landline went dead for 2nd time in about a month. We have voice service through Xfinity along with cable TV and Internet. Resetting or unplugging modem didn't help.Last month, the tech determined it was an internal switch inside the modem that was the issue. Apparently a software app resolved that until 4 days ago. A subcontractor tech came out for 20 minutes without using any testing gear, told us the wire inside the wall was bad. He could drill a new hole through the siding into our back kitchen wall to run a new line to the kitchen phone outlet. Or drop landline service. We said no thanks, and called Xfinity about the subpar service call. They sent an actual Xfinity tech who knew phones. He tried to cut and splice wires outside house, but said they were too corroded. If we wanted landline, he said to use kitchen phone plugged directly into modem. But we'd have no answering machine.
In the end, we went to Normal Best Buy, purchased a cordless/wireless phone with a digital answering machine. Haven't hooked it up yet.
(EP Best Buy stopping carrying them on shelves)People might think, "just go without landline" in this era of Smartphones.
Granted, only landline phone calls we get are from the pharmacy about prescriptions being ready, doctor appointment reminders, or spam. That's it. We would save about $56 a month dropping it. And even though wife and I are pretty good with Smartphones and capabilities, we still wanted the landline as a backup just in case Verizon gets hacked or has a serious outage. So how many here still have a landline for main use, or a backup? Or who has dropped theirs altogether?