Your anecdata is bad. Even after the conspiracy was discovered, incandescent bulbs still had a much lower life expectancy than LED lights.
It's simple physics :-)
The LEDs themselves are very robust, solid-state semiconductors that will function for a very long time, but they need additional electronics to function in a 110/220V socket, and those electronics seem to be crummier than the old incandescent filaments.
Yep - I've done a post mortem on a few LED bulbs that failed and each time the LEDs were fine but the driver failed.
This is anecdotal, but I had a bunch of bulbs of the same brand that started to fail, on the remaining bulbs I drilled a few air vent holes into them as they are used indoors only, and since then haven't had another failure.
I'm suspecting most LED bulbs fail from thermal stress on the driver circuitry.
perhaps in theory - not in real life.
What kind of bulbs are you using? LED bulbs should last a decade.
Was having my house painted a few years back, I have a triple set of spots near the very top of the roof (so about 30 feet in the air) - painter helpfully suggests - do you want me to replace those bulbs up there while I have my ladder up there? I agreed.
Big mistake, the bulbs their were still working 17 years after I moved in - now I have to replace them about every 18 months with the cheap crap the government only allows to be sold.
Not sure how replacing bulbs and throwing them in the landfill every 1-2 years is doing anything good for the environment.