What I had found showed less reliability over time because economics of scale reduced manufacturing costs and thus price of 3.5" and 5.25" ones, where some said that 8" disks were extremely reliable. My thoughts were that well-made disks could have a lifetime comparable to that of LTO storage.

They were reliable prior to 1994, reliable for good brands in 1994, and unreliable after 1994.

A few years later, the floppy drives became terrible too. Every computer was expected to have a floppy drive, but the drives were seldom used, so the quality was cut for price competition.

Presumably you’d want to look for a comparison in the context of the state’s needs. Googling for floppy disk reliability won’t tell you much by itself.