I agree, the ongoing and erratic basis that my devices ask me to sign in to iCloud is a serious flaw. I already find iCloud a completely opaque mess of services

I agree, the ongoing and erratic basis that my devices ask me to sign in to iCloud is a serious flaw. I already find iCloud a completely opaque mess of services that I don't understand, and this doesn't help. The only saving grace is that cancelling out of these requests usually has no obvious downside.