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Comment by rglover | Hacker News Reader

> We're disrupting funeral homes.

Man, that sounds...horrible.

I know what you mean - but you also hear some horror stories about funeral directors. They're an industry that gets to take advantage of uninformed consumers at a vulnerable time of their life.

I'm not sure We, or any other company even remotely connected to Silicon Valley, are the right people to fix that, though.

Companies like Costco and Walmart have disrupted them to a point, by selling coffins at least.

Does it really? I can imagine there's room for innovation in helping people to honor and grieve the passing of their loved ones.

The innovation would be to not demand obscene prices from the loved ones at their time of grieving.

This isn't necessarily the fault of the funeral home. It's a much the traditional and society pressure that says this is what you do when you die.

Aside: How come airlines give you a bereavement discount while a caterer doesn't?

Nothing stopping your family from a simple cremation and open tab at your favorite social spot for a couple of hours of celebration

Or a picnic...

Or a concert with your favorite local bands ...

Or a bike/hike into the mountains to scatter your ashes...

Etc. The point is you don't have to have a funeral service followed by internment in the ground. We've just been trained this is "the right thing to do".

My dad always (only half joking) says his dying wish is to have the last cheque he writes bounce.

The funeral home can certainly be at fault. They try to upsell the options like a car salesman. They should just provide a list of options and let the family decide.

Yep, here's Liberace (famous pianist, here an actor) being the funeral analog of the car-salesman in the '60's movie "The Love One": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoZ5dTQa_2E

I definitely want “dampness proof”

>Aside: How come airlines give you a bereavement discount while a caterer doesn't?

I believe they mostly don't any longer. https://traveltips.usatoday.com/airlines-offer-bereavement-f...

The argument (besides $$ of course) is that airfares, even last minute ones, are mostly not the huge expense for even middle class people that they once were.

First step would be to provide direction to your loved ones upon your passing.

The phrase "Disrupting Funeral Homes" would probably be taken to mean busting into funerals uninvited, at least by people ignorant of the business meaning.

Wait. I'm getting a growth idea. Poison half the free beer. Customers will recall the lively and generous atmosphere of the WeDie funeral home and use it for their recently deceased loved ones. The flywheel would then continue to spin...

There's a big problem with funeral homes preying on people's grief for profit. They could absolutely use some disruption, however I doubt that disruption could ever be in the form of a profit-seeking startup.

You know, it occurs to me that we have client owned insurance companies and client owned credit unions. Why in the world we don't have community/mutual based funeral homes is beyond me.

>Why in the world we don't have community/mutual based funeral homes is beyond me.

Do you mean burial sites (cemetary) and not funeral homes, or is this perhaps a quirk of localization? To me, born in the American south a "funeral home" is just the place where mourning ceremonies are (sometimes, but not always) held while the bereaved travel to a separate burial site afterwards to actually lay the departed to rest.

So that in mind, is what got me asking-is it the burial site you're actually suggesting be a community/mutual based resource or the actual establishment? I've sometimes heard people use the two interchangeably.

The UK has Co-operative funerals : https://www.co-operativefuneralcare.co.uk/

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