To what extent is planned obsolescence a reality?

Are products really designed to fail after a short amount of time? I’d hate to think something so awful is true, but sometimes I’ve been led to believe it is. We remodeled one of the bathrooms in our house and just now, four years later, many things in the bathroom are beginning to fail. Things that would’ve lasted for years had the bathroom been built decades ago…

It could just be that products aren’t made as well as they used to be, but sometimes I think that things are made to fail on purpose. My friend told me about the dryer in his house that failed after 5 years. I looked up the model online and apparently an electrical device fries in this dryer after about 5 years rendering it useless. If that doesn’t sound liked planned obsolescence, I don’t know what does…

Obviously all I have are “anecdotes”, but that’s what I’m looking for. What are your personal experiences that lead you to think planned obsolescence is real (or not)?