KAcz HEvac, etc
I think it is in the quality of materials and manufacture,
after all in the 80 s the discs were made thicker, the ones I have from then still work fine. It's not my environment, which is a normal home one for them
However, newer ones and it seems to me the newer the worse they are , do skip and as you say they have become like vinyl records. Which were horrible in that regard.
The selling of cds in the 80's focused on people' s frustration with LP's , the scratch and the skipping, were so common and difficult to counter act the effects of, since the CD was supposed to eliminate all that , CD's took off in popularity, that is one reason anyway.
The manufacturers at the time , applied reason to their actions and made the discs of higher quality, That is my opinion anyway based on experience.
Now they have us, Or did till ipods took over, they started making discs poorly , either because they assumed we would just run out and buy a new one, or due to prices dropping for CD's, especially once people could make their own discs at home. Cd prices fell.
this really bugs, me. I order new CD's and then have the great displeasure of having to skip over tracks just to hear part of the album! And, I feel taken advantage off, since they roped me in with CD;s that did not skip and scratch.
Perhaps, it's in the type or quality of the plastic they use. Otherwise , why do Japanese discs work and sound much better at twice the price of our CD's?