Big Sur - USB No Longer Working

I'm not sure this has anything to do with Big Sur update or not, as I did the update last week and today I've hit an issue.

I use USBs all the time, and with Mac they regularly 'brick' themselves and become utterly unusable. This might be the 3rd or so in 18 months that has done it, and so I'm trying to find a fix before I buy a fourth.

None of these Disk Utility options work: First Aid, Erase, Restore, Mount. They all hit Operation Failed within seconds, and no amount of research has given me an answer.

Recovery Mode also did nothing whatsoever, nor does changing the Format or the Scheme in any permutation. Getting pretty sick of this happening regularly with zero way to fix them.

Any thoughts? Questions?

Go easy, give me the simplest terms.