My experience is the reverse of yours Jill. From the earliest days of digital cameras I’ve only ever used card readers. That would be about 25 years now and I’ve never connected any of my cameras to my computer to download images.
I’ve not had one failure in all that time, be that a card failure or lost images, but I always format the card in the camera and never allow software to remove images from the card as part of the download process. I also don’t allow images to build up on a card either, which means the cards are in and out of my camera probably a lot more than most peoples. I download the images I shoot every day with few exceptions. Then format the card ready for the next day out.
I’m not sure what one persons experience amounts to, but with not one issue in all that time suggests I must be doing something right. I do buy good quality cards, but I have to admit my card reader was a cheap one that I used for many years. Only changed it recently when I needed to download the new type of Compact Flash cards.