On the other hand, there are whole swaths of the globe where people are not reliant on the latest technology, and not part of the normal money economy. For them, good times is getting enough for your cash crop to afford a new chain saw; bad times you keep using the old chain saw. Good times you trade for a newer shotgun; bad times you fix the old one.
I was on a job in the jungle when the country was in an economic collapse (not infrequent in third world countries). The city folk had it tough; government employees hadn’t been paid in a while. The folks living out in the jungle lived like homesteaders always do. They didn’t notice one way or the other.
Yes, that is a great paradox I could not explore in such a short story with one isolated POV. Primitive folks living close to the land will be hurt the least by the cutoff of power. In some cases, they might only notice the lack of the glow of city lights on a distant horizon. But there are not too many of them left. Most depend on grid power to one measure or another, even if it’s to supply a trading post by truck. Power goes down, the trucks will stop coming.