Loads of countries have effective power grids which go down incredibly rarely. I can't even remember the last power cut I had - maybe a few years ago? It's certainly rare enough that I don't need my main source of cooking and heat to take it into account.
My parents live in rural Scotland and use a ground source heat pump for heat and an induction stove for cooking. Power outages happen more often - but still pretty rarely. If they do, they burn wood for heat and eat cold food for a few hours.
And when the grid goes down, then what will you do? How will the utility compensate you for your death when they find you frozen?
This is not an academic question, especially in North America. The weather here can be very harsh.
We lost power earlier this year as the temparature dropped to 0F (-18C). Our contingency (oil heat, oil generator) kicked in and we were fine, but many people were not.
After power was restored, people with air source heat pumps were still stuck, as the heat pumps don't function well at all at those temps, and heating up a house after it has cooled to a low temp is not what a air source heat pump is good at. These are not problems at all for an oil furnace.
If I didn’t have a fireplace I’d probably invest in some kerosene space heaters or similar.
I haven’t had a power outage lasting over an hour for as long as I can remember (years), but that doesn’t mean I’m not considering that scenario. There could be wars or sabotage or whatever. One should always be able to manage for a week or so without power and that will require some form of backup such as a combustion heater of some sort. But having a backup solution that keeps you alive for a week isn’t so expensive. You don’t need two completely separate and redundant heating methods simply because one of them relies on the power grid.
My parents live in rural Scotland and use a ground source heat pump for heat and an induction stove for cooking. Power outages happen more often - but still pretty rarely. If they do, they burn wood for heat and eat cold food for a few hours.