Though its not exactly what the article is talking about, I accept the idea of a basic income in some form as almost inevitable... but it'll have to wait until after the baby boomers loose power.
(since I don't think this should be means-tested, I guess you could argue it is a form of basic income, although usually basic-income is paid in some form of cash).
While you may think that handing out a bunch of stuff to people (even if that stuff is the bare minimum) would provide incentive to move off of such assistance it doesn't. It strips people of any interest in agency and has them believe they don't control their own well-being. This is exactly what the development sector has gotten wrong for several decades and until things change, not much good will come out of it.
If you want growth, you need enterprise, not subsistence.
If it's saving money you're worried about, just giving them the money is probably a lot more efficient. Whatever that crap you listed is worth? Give them the cash instead, let them handle the logistics of buying it (or buying something else they need, a determination they're in a much better position to make than you are), and save the substantial amount of money involved in having an entire apparatus for handing out crap.
The problem is that people don't even attempt an objective assessment of the impact of doing things one way versus the impact of doing things another way. It's more common to assess a plan based on "how does this jive with the ideology I've taken on for myself?" or to use a simple judgment based on aesthetics.
However the benefit isn't necesarilly what we care about, in this case at least I am much more interested in avoiding the failure mode where they stay on wellfare because it is nicer than getting a job.
Or perhaps many local ones. But yes, exploit the capitalist system and let the cheapest provider win.
Who will decide what goes into it?
The political system. Basically, there will be a public itemized list of what people gain from the welfare system. Periodically, progressive types will say "oh no, the poor lack XXX", and XXX will be added to the list of items. Conversely, conservative types can read the list and point out "WTF, why are we paying for YYY", and get such items removed.
It's far better than the current system, in which basically no one has any clue what goods and services the poor have access to. This enables progressive types to say "oh noes, the poor are barely surviving" and conservatives to say "they all drive cadillacs", and neither side can refute the other without reading obscure Census reports (and obviously no one does that).
I need a PC, internet connection, VPS server, appstore developer account, and smartphone.
Your list doesn't have any of those.
In a developed country like the USA, if you gave a person on welfare a pile of cash, they'd most likely just go mad with it until it was all spent, then revert to their prior welfare lifestyle. This has been studied, though I can't find the citation I'm specifically thinking of. People who live in long-term poverty in the USA see money as something to be spent for immediate gratification. The idea of saving it and investing it is foreign to them.
Some people surely will. The question is, are those the outliers, or the mainstream? And, even if people do that, is that a cheaper way than the current social welfare provider industry structure to keep them out of prisons or emergency rooms or other expensive institutions?
This is partly because they don't have enough money to take care of their immediate needs and save for something better, and partly because nobody they trust has shown them any other way of living.
Imagine you have a choice between paying for a flat screen TV and starving, and eating high quality food for a month. You have no social connections outside your economic class, thus no evidence that any action you can take will lead to your situation changing. If you are poor, you will choose the TV because it guarantees a baseline level of pleasure indefinitely, while the food will run out after a month and you'll be back where you started. Since you're constantly coping with the stress of being on the edge of survival, your willpower is continually depleted. Congratulations, you're now stuck.