I think SD card failure rates are way overblown if you’re buying from reputable manufacturers (Sandisk, Samsung). I’m sure they do occasionally fail, but I’ve never experienced one.

You’re right, for really intensive tasks the costs can climb, but I see people asking for ideas for what to do with a junk laptop and the top suggestion is always something like pi-hole or a bookmark manager that could run on a potato.

Like with most things in life, it depends.