In New Zealand, culturally people generally use dryers only when it is too wet to hang them outside. Dryers are seen as wasteful and destructive. T-shirts last longer but they do not last forever. Quality has gone down substantially.
I don't think brand is a good predictor either, e.g. the old t shirt is from threadless IIRC while I had many other threadless tshirts which didn't last near as long.