I’m not sure I agree. I’ve seen tech illiterate family members screw up Pixels and Samsung devices in the same way they screwed up Windows systems in the past. Even the most tech illiterate family members have done nothing bad to their iPhones. In fact I know one that was still using an iPhone 7 until last year and it was very functional. Two year old top of the line Samsung phones are crawling after two years. All anecdotal of course.
It does work. As I said, I had to go through it with a family member a few months ago. It's hardly Apple's problem if a user forgets their password AND email address.
I don't expect Apple to get someone back into an account they've forgotten everything about, but you shouldn't need to do that just to download a free app. Grandma already knows her passcode, that should be enough.
There are like 10 grandmas in my extended family (in-laws etc), none of them know their Apple ID passwords, none have recovery contacts. They probably forgot because it never asks for that password except when they want to download a free app, cause for some reason that's a highly sensitive thing.
