Hacker News Reader

Comment by Spivak | Hacker News Reader

Not to get too meta but undermining reviews is also a tactic used by companies to manipulate sales because if you don’t trust any reviews but still have to make a decision you’re going to go with a “safe” “established” brand which usually means whoever has the most mindshare.

View on HN

I see how that argument would work for Sealy, Simmons and Serta. I don't see how this would work for Casper or any of the other no-name mattress-in-a-box company.

Given the amount of advertising most of these companies (especially Casper) they're hardly no-name.

For younger people who want easy choices I have 100% seen this lead people to default to Casper. I send around the article on their practices regularly due to this, and buy my mattresses off Wayfair mostly based on price and basic sanity checking.

Right now I have an incredible 14 inches of Queen memory foam I got for $400 that's incredible to sleep on. The brand? A no name.

What I've taken away from the mattress craziness is that if you exclude the fancy things like temperature adjustment and sleep number stuff, most basic mattresses come down to basic material and then secondly firmness. As long as you get those two things right they kinda all seem to be the same.

I’ve never even heard of those first three. I don’t even know if they are mattress companies. I’ve heard of Casper.

They're some of the biggest mattress companies. If you haven't heard of them, you probably don't live in a market they operate in.

Can you recommend an unbiased site then

Consumer Reports is non-profit and purchases all of the products it tests. Its revenue comes from subscriptions and grants/donations, not advertising or commissions.

https://www.consumerreports.org

Some U.S. public libraries offer access to Consumer Reports for free with a library card.

> commissions

sadly, consumer reports now gets money from purchases through amazon affiliate links

Thanks for the correction. You're right.

I would still place more trust in Consumer Reports than in for-profit review sites, but that trust has declined.

Sleep Like The Dead[0] is a fantastic, independent site for mattress reviews that relies more on quantitative data[1] than commentary.

[0]: https://www.sleeplikethedead.com

[1]: https://www.sleeplikethedead.com/mattress-reviews-casper.htm...

I trust The Wirecutter https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/casper-mattress-review-an-...

https://www.themattressunderground.com/mattress-forum.html

That’s how i found a mattress that is still like new after 6 years of usage (and I’m extremely satisfied). And no, none of the “big” brand.

Here a rule of thumbs, avoiding a brand that start by “s” is already a good start. Then there is a few more to filter out.

Used by BIG companies* is your point, right? That's interesting and makes sense.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com