Read a teardown article a while back where some repair guy said the old cheap players had like three moving parts total, just a basic laser sled and a spin motor, so there was almost nothing to actually fail. The newer Sony units pack in streaming apps, wifi chips, firmware updates, and those slim tray loaders with plastic gears that strip out easy. Watched a video where a guy showed the tray gear on those Sonys is like a 50 cent part that snaps if you look at it wrong. So you probably didn't just get lucky twice, the newer stuff really does have more failure points built in.

Made a folder called "someday" three years ago thinking I'd actually read all that stuff, now it's 200 tabs of half-finished articles I keep telling myself I'll get to. Just renamed it "never" and moved on with my life.