I was going to say, you posted this as a meme but as a serious question, I'm having a hard-time answering this. It is a really interesting question though, now that you have me thinking about it. I think it's more of a Social question, rather than a question about the conspiracies themselves.

I think both lies are equally terrible & "in-your-face". I honestly think 2001's society was much more naive, innocent, trusting, faithful, patriotic and still believed in the American Dream. 2020's society has lost all of that. With 9/11, more people trusted the official narrative Vs. Covid-19 (even though honestly, it was a shitty narrative with plenty of plot-holes, including the Dancing Israelis and Tower 7..) because of:

• The internet was still in it's infancy. Most people were using American Online as their web-browser. The average person never even heard of things like this back in 2001.

• Trust for the government & all of America's "Official Systems" were still much higher in 2001 because of the above mentioned things. We didn't need MSM across the nation reading from a massive script to convince us to watch and get news from them; we all did, naturally - it was the only way to get official, real, authentic, non-propagandized news (or so we thought). I remember my parents waking up and getting the paper and coffee each morning before taking me to school.

Now they've played their hands in so many areas, like others have mentioned, it's end-game type shit. They have people of all political ideologies and backgrounds angry or mad at government and it's relating systems, from the FDA, to the Federal Reserve, and beyond (or people are mad simply because of the government's actions, people have begun researching & questioning their actions & motives. They believe the government and everything orbiting it is corrupt; if you associate with people who traffic and molest children on a large, political, international scale, what else are you capable of?), so at this point, they're practically begging citizens to watch MSM and get their information from Main Stream News to milk this thing for a little while longer and make it last as long as they can, because they know the mental ecosystem they've created (or spell they've cast across Americans, in any interpretation of the word you want to use), is falling apart. If you check how well Hollywood has been doing in the last decade compared to all other decades, this is a major reflection of that, as Hollywood is a major part of their propaganda and mind control program according to their own declassified MK-ULTRA (and relating project) documents. It's also a huge money-laundering and human-trafficking program; they aren't getting sales anymore due to how in-your-face the propaganda has become, as well as the perverse messages embedded in all movies, especially those for children, since the Smith Mudnt Act of 2012.

Both lies were obvious, terrible and in-your-face. The path to truth is literally like the movie They Live (the whole movie, each scene, is a metaphor to one finding out the truth - this famous scene represents cognitive dissonance and people's unwillingness to accept the truth, even when the evidence is right before their eyes (I feel as a society, we all went through this in some shape or form in the last 20 years). They don't want to see it. They will excommunicate you, talk shit about you, even turn you into the enemy or convince themselves you're crazy. I really recommend everyone watch this movie if they want to know the truth).

The question you should be asking is: "What's different between American Adults/American Society in 2020 versus 2001, and why?", then you'll have your answer as to why it seems like COVID-19 was the "in-your-face" conspiracy, when they actually both were truly in-your-face and were filled with plot-holes. Larry Silverstein would visit the restaurant every morning on-top of the World Trade Center he had acquired, he had a reservation for the morning of 9/11. However, the official narrative is, the day before 9/11 he paid for an insane insurance policy on a building that was built to withstand terrorist attacks and be indestructible (The Twin Towers), and instead of going for his regular breakfast as normal at the TT, his "wife convinced him to go to his doctor appointment", which he then skipped and spent the morning walking around the streets of NYC (just randomly, on a whim, for no reason, something he's never done before he said) just to see the twin towers get hit by planes. What a lucky guy, and what a coincidence. There's so many plot-holes in 9/11, it's unbelievable.

This is why Covid-19 may seem like the shittier conspiracy. More people are aware of the games they play now. Society has lost its innocence. They aren't the naive society of the 90's that believe everything's gonna be ok. They're not the naive society of 08 that had "Hope". We're reaching the end, it feels like.

Edit: I just realized in that scene in "They Live" I linked to, one of the parking spots that has the freshest paint on it has the name "Dakessian" (and I've seen this movie a countless amount of times). It sounded kinda weird, especially for an 80's movie, so I looked it up. It's a family-owned legal business, inherited law firm I've never heard of meant for the elite, that focuses on Californian Tax Law and serves "Fortune 500 Companies, Global Institutions, and High Net-Worth Individuals" (currently passed down to the current owner of 20 years. Some of their "past wins", featuring cases against the government of California with clients such as SpaceX, Kia and the Energy Sector - Energy Sector client redacted for privacy). There's literally so much packed into this movie, if you haven't watched it, seriously, watch it. There is no filler; every scene is important and has meaning - there's also always information in the backgrounds if you're paying attention.

He's been fighting the State of California in the past 2 years over their Tax Laws to defend large companies and their wealth:

https://www.assembly.ca.gov/media/assembly-revenue-taxation-20190225/video

His Sister has her own legal business set-up that works with the government too, just from a different angle; she participates in RICO acts, as linked above. This family is definitely embedded in the system somewhere. Also, what a weird last name; I've never heard of someone with that last name. If you research this family's lineage, 10 minutes worth of research will supply you with a history of wealth among this family tracing back for a century, while intermixing with "the elites" in various ways throughout time.