Earlier quoted context omitted.
First, you can totally carry a phone in airplane mode or a tablet without cellular capabilities. Or you can scan with a tablet from a known location (e.g. the office) and regularly do so. Second, the threat model isn't new. Tiles have had the same capability for a long time. GPS trackers that use cellular to report your location are about as big as an AirTag (although more expensive). But finally, this is something a…
So we're back to, "carry a tracking device if you don't want to get tracked." Even if I had a phone, or could afford one, then I will still be carrying a tracking device. Do you really think airplane mode will prevent tracking? Apple's AirTag fuckery works even when devices present as in the "off" state! And of course there's no longer any easy way to remove phone batteries now. I don't want to be tracked by the AirT…
AirTags can be read using Apple software for either Apple or Google hardware, you don't have to opt into Apple's ecosystem at all. Airplane mode prevents tracking by carriers the most passive method and what most people object to when they call phones tracking devices. It of course also prevents any other methods (e.g. GPS) from calling home. Apple AirTag-like tracking of iDevices (while off) only works on newer iDevices that have a special BLE chip that runs in the "off" state and that behavior is easily disabled from the settings menu, so it can be disabled when your device is off or always. Between those two settings, you can set any Apple device into something that does not transmit anything about you.
This 100% answers your "I don't want to be tracked by a phone carried to prevent AirTag tracking"
As for " I don't want to and should not have to carry any tech", you may not want to have any kind of technology, and that's your right, but it does seem like a trivial burden. The number of things like parking that seems to require a phone is growing. While I dislike that as a societal arc, this is within that arc.
You don't seem to know what a Tile is. It's the same thing as an AirTag released for a similar price point years ago that is similar in size. The difference is, only phones that opted into downloading the Tile software scanned for and reported them to home base. But it was a fairly complete network with all the same tracking concerns.
Meanwhile, GPS receivers with 4G transmitters are under $30 on Amazon with the same physical footprint as an AirTag. Those devices are no longer bigger or significantly more power hungry than AirTags. But of course, they also make ones designed to be wired into a vehicle for power, which would last longer than the 10 month (nominal) battery life I found. And GPS avoids the "scanning with a phone" detection.
Meanwhile, you seem to ignore the use cases that many people have for finding keys or their own property. Yes, you don't want to be tracked. But I own things and I want to track them. So do companies. Outlawing trackers imposes a very large cost on them. Meanwhile, detecting malicious trackers is easy enough that it doesn't seem to impose a cost on everyone else.
And, of course, people would be far less concerned about anyone owning a machine-gun if there was an app you could run on your phone that would prevent the bullets from hurting you.