I will admit to having noticed that tires I buy these days seem to crack in very short order, measured from months to 4 years. Yet I will have tires from the 80s and 90s which are still crack free, so can't merely blame the environment or the sunlight. But I will not extend that to 80 year old tires. There is a limit to everything.
Here in North America, the tire companies first came out lobbying to get winter tires as a requirement over having all season tires or driving with summer tires. It meant that they would get to sell everyone a second set of tires. Then, because, of course, you might get twice as long out of those tires since you are only running them half the year, they now recommend a 4 year tire life. And coincidentally, they now exhibit cracks at the 4 year mark.
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