I think they might have began quoting the LED lifetime on boxes, which is still true, but in reality something else in the bulb usually breaks before the LEDs themselves. I guess manufacturers have either taken it upon themselves or have been forced to reduce the quoted lifetime since the famous 100,000 hours marketing.
Or they quote the lifetime figure for a single LED, but then wire up a dozen or more in series to make the light. Any one of them fails and the whole assembly goes dark.
