Indeed, we will still be safer using paper money, and I don't want it to be completely phased out and replaced by CBDCs. But the government doesn't want that because they know that CBDC will give them better control over us, so I think CBDC is inevitable, and we won't be able to stop it. But that's not going to happen anytime soon, at least not in our generation, because our current world is still full of people who don't have access to smartphones or the internet, so it's tough for comprehensive CBDC implementation.
I understand your scepticism, but i don't think that problem will be in adoption but in the fact that there's no suitable ZK tech for it yet that governments would allow in larger scale. We are in the testing phase of few alpha versions that are most likely not going to take off as any of current platforms isn't really regulatory compliant or safe enough.
And while there technically still are people that don't have an access to internet, there are people who don't have an access to banking or money either. But in civilized countries those numbers of internet users are way up, And that number is slowly increasing as the meaning and demand for physcal cash is decreasing.
2023 Internet user statistics ,