You mean you don’t like going into settings -> privacy & security -> location services, toggling the location services button, then pressing the “Turn Off” confirmation popup at the bottom?

It’s almost like they don’t want us to turn it off and their airtag service falls apart without participating iPhones providing that location information.

You could build 5 by analyzing calls on-device and sharing that information with apple. It might be difficult to make sure personal information does not get included in the shared data though.

All removable media is impermanent. Keep backups.

But realistically, if it is never unplugged and only used read-only as a media source, it’s unlikely either will fail in a couple years at least (probably longer). If it fails, just buy another to replace it.