Interesting to note that this wasn't always the case - The Hitachi Deskstar line used to have the nickname "Deathstar" due to their low reliability (this was maybe 15-20 years ago)
Years later people noticed that the drives were highly reliable again and the Deathstar problem was a fluke. But now it's too late. All of the HDD manufacturers have been gobbled up by just two companies and all of the interesting competition is on the SSD side.