A number of outdoor gear stores like REI and (sorta) LL Bean have discontinued lifetime returns during the past few years. I've known people who used policies as sort of a lifetime subscription to, say, a rain jacket. I'm not sure the reason the policies eventually changed.

I assume it's some combination of degraded quality as most stuff is made in the same Asian factories and an increasingly widespread attitude that it's OK to take anything that isn't nailed down.