[cdt5050]

A huge reason SD cards have been unreliable in the past is because of a lack of wear leveling functionality, and architecture assuming sequential writes (e.g. large buffers that require larger blocks of data to be erased and rewritten even when writes are small as is typical in random writes, resulting in excessive write cycles).

Modern SD cards have much more intelligent controllers that perform wear leveling and work with the OS to reduce excessive write cycles.

Not that they're as reliable as modern SSDs, but I'd be willing to bet a modern SD card from a reputable brand is as reliable as SSDs were a while back when they were generally regarded as reliable enough.

Almost every time I've teased the info out of people with failed SD cards on Pi's, either it's either physically damaged, or it's an off-brand, or it's an ancient card.