An Era of Smartphones

I have a contract with AT&T, as most of you know after a 2 year contract we have the option to upgrade our phones and extend the contract. My parents uses a phone for basic use, they just need to make calls. I was browsing for a new phone for them, but they showed were old cheap flip phones. The decent phones required a data plan. After a few hours of discussing with my parents, we got frustrated with the amount of phones that were available. We decided to just get a smartphone with a data plan along with it. Both of my parents now have an iPhone that they barely know how to use, so the phone isn't being used to it's potential.

After purchasing these, I then realized, is this a new era of smartphones? What I mean is, everyone might as well get a smartphone in order to have a decent phone because of a data plan requirement. If you're in a group of friends and you have a basic phone, it is bizzarre because it isn't the "cool thing." I just don't think its fair to force customers to have a data plan when they can have an option to just use the wifi around them.