These People
The sort of people you are talking about here are like my mother in law, in her 80's and widowed.
"£100 down and £9 a month - you game?"
"No. What would I use it for, even if I could learn to use it?"
In fact she has a perfectly good PC, printer, and scanner from when her husband died. I cancelled the broadband once I had dealt with the estate, and set up a PAYG dial-up. She turns it on occasionally to use a little program I have put on that makes it act like a photocopyier, and a couple of times I have talked her through receiving and printing an e-mail when I needed to get a document to her urgently.
And that's it. Anything else she needs on line I do for her (selling off bits and pieces on ebay for instance). I can't tutor her, living 200 miles away, and the local first step course is in the evening, when she is in bed by 9:00, plus a taxi would be £15 each way.
As for telephone support, forget it. They would never have the patience.
There is no way she is ever going to use that machine, ut on the other hand she is not exactly without access to the net, via me - so what's the big problem?