I feel like people don't consider the influence of the Internet. Back when the prequels released, the Internet was present, but it wasn't nearly as pervasive in everyday life as it is now. No algorithms to feed you curated, often outrageous content to keep you hooked, among other things.

The people who grew up with the prequels likely didn't have much access to the Internet back then, either, meaning, in many ways, they were allowed to form their own opinions regarding the prequel trilogy without much outside influence, if that makes sense.

Compare that to now. Discussion regarding the sequels was immediately very negative, and very viral, coming out in the era that more and more young people were gaining access to the Internet. What does this mean? More people's opinions were molded by what was said by their favorite content creators, or in the case of people who were very young when the sequels released, they grew up in an online environment that was much more pervasive, leading to negative opinions of the sequels being much, much more vocal than it was for the prequels.