Defective iphone lightning cables

I have the iPhone 5S, along with 5 lightning cables of different lengths that I use for home, near the TV, car, work. ALL but one of them is now bad. All but one are just over 2 years old.

I did some searching on the Internet and it seems this is a larger problem:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/regajha/why?bffb&utm_term=4ldqpgp#.byqLe7v4n

My question is, can I not get these replaced at the Apple Store due to this defect, even out of warranty? I have USB cables from the 90's that still work, it would seem that something as new as lightning cables should indeed be manufactured to last a long time.

I found my receipts from the purchases at the Apple Store, so I can just bring them all down and ask them, but I'm expecting to be turned away due to the warranty. I can't justify spending 19.00/each for more cables, that just doesn't seem fair.

Anyone have any luck with this?

Thanks.