Less is more. The point OP was trying to make is to keep what is vital. People already have way too many possessions, digital hoarding is even easier.

Please fail to realize the mental toll there is from keeping things you don't need.

I reject that premise on functionality. I doubt anyone would be happy losing all of their financial records, photos, personal correspondence, etc.

If digital records aren't your long term secure storage, then what is? Paper printouts? With "really important" ones in a safe or safe deposit box? That is much harder to manage - for backups, organization, and retrieval - than having a digital source of truth and a few redundant backups.

And honestly once you're getting into someone "less able, cognitively impaired, or perhaps very young" to the point where they can't even manage productized cloud solutions, then they really need someone more capable that's involved in managing their (digital) life.

One thing is people are worried about losing their old mail and statements and tax returns - its actually pretty liberating to have disk crash and realize you dont need any of that.

It’s not so great when the IRS audits you. Backups are cheap insurance. Relying on luck is not a great strategy when backups are now cheap in every way imaginable.