Coated deterioration

Do coated strings last forever? Here's proof that they do not. When you keep playing coated strings, the coating itself wears out & leaves the string exposed. This way, your strings are like ordinary, uncoated strings. The guitar you see above is my Ibanez S1XXV, the default green coated strings were worn out & rusty. In fact, the rust is threatening to eat into my frets. This is the reason why you shouldn't keep rusty strings in tact, replace them ASAP.

I've since replaced them with a fresh set of D'Addario steels & had no obligations to have another green set in there. The frets were all cleaned up too.