
Hipster Mattresses: Why? - vermontdevil
http://tedium.co/2016/01/14/hipster-mattresses-casper-yogabed/
======
nmeofthestate
No, foam mattresses you buy on the internet aren't "hipster". If asked to
picture a hipster mattress, I'd see in my mind's eye something artisanal,
hand-made by traditional methods. Hessian. Hand-wound springs (are those a
thing?).

Hipster here seems to be a cliched way of saying "annoying to me".

~~~
n0us
Yes, we actually did a unit on these types of people in one of my political
science classes a while back. They're known as Bourgeoisie Bohemians or
"bobos" for short in academia but I recognized them as hipsters. They are a
group of people who spend very little on things that used to be expensive but
quite a lot on things that would traditionally be perceived as cheap. For
example they would never buy a crystal chandelier or a new car, but instead
would buy something like a 1980s Volvo. On the mattress end, they would do
something like sleep on the ground or buy a very high end "hand wound"
mattress.

[https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/brooks-
bobos.html](https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/brooks-bobos.html) This book
takes a relatively comical approach to the subject but there is a real way to
categorize these people other than "annoying to me"

~~~
earlz
I understand that argument and what a hipster "is", but how does shipping
memory foam from an internet site resemble this in any way?

~~~
vanderZwan
I think gp was agreeing with the assessment that it doesn't.

------
sc00ty
About two years ago a post on HN came up about Tuft & Needle. I was in the
market for a new mattress at the time so I scouted the site for a while before
eventually purchasing a King sized mattress for $499. One of their selling
points at the time was that it was a quality mattress without the high prices,
and at $500 I could definitely agree with that.

The mattress itself has been great, but at the time they only sold 5" thick
mattresses. I eventually found that 5" was too thin for me and finding a
mattress frame I liked was quite difficult. Being so low to the ground just
felt more uncomfortable than anything when I woke up in the morning. About a
month after I got my mattress, T&N came out with a 10" version (Which they
exclusively sell now), which was only $100 more at the time for a King. It
seems they now sell for about $750 (compared to $600 before)

I'm still using my 5" Tuft & Needle but I'm going to be purchasing a new
mattress in the near future and will most likely try out Leesa, though I'm not
totally committed to it yet. It's been interesting watching all these mattress
companies enter the market but with more options I'm finding it difficult to
make a choice.

~~~
sjg007
Did the mattress hold up? Is the only reason you are changing because it is
too thin and low to the ground but is it otherwise comfortable?

~~~
sc00ty
The mattress has held up great. I've had no problems with the mattress itself
other than it being too thin for me (which isn't really an issue for new
buyers). As a 6'3" 200lb male, I can feel whatever is below the mattress and
it's not the most pleasant thing.

------
colanderman
_When you’re moving from one location to another, your mattress is generally
either the largest thing you’re taking with you, or the second-largest thing._

Um, what? Not the couch, or the bureau, or the dining room table? Maybe this
is true of furnished apartments, but for me, even the _boxspring_ beats the
mattress in terms of "this is so large how the heck am I going to get it from
point A to point B". Mattress is pretty far down that list.

Not that this matters much for foam mattresses, since, once unrolled, a foam
mattress is _nearly impossible to roll back up_ and is just as difficult to
move.

That said, the author's point about the _initial_ ship of foam mattresses is a
good one. Going with a foam mattress was the only reason I was able to drive
it home in the back of my 2-seater to a very dense part of Boston and fit it
into the lofted bed of a tiny studio apartment.

But when it came time to move? I sold it to the next tenant. No way that was
making the journey out as easily.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I would say, though, that the mattress is by far the most annoying. It's a
floppy object with handles - if it even _has_ handles - that are placed in
arguably the word possible location:

    
    
          _____
         |     |
        [|     |]
         |     |
        [|     |]
         |_____|
    

This is fine if you're carrying your mattress pallbearer style down a wide
open hallway, with it orientated the same way as it would be laying on your
bed. But in reality, most people move to places with hallways, or stairwells,
where it would make the most sense to rotate it 90 degrees about the longest
axis - and the best way to carry it then would be with handles here:

    
    
            _
          _|_|_
         |     |
         |     |
         |     |
         |     |
         |_____|
           |_|

~~~
dpark
A mattress generally does not have enough rigidity to allow it to be carried
by the far ends like that. If you put handles at the head and foot and carried
it that way, it would likely sag so badly that you'd be dragging it the whole
way.

Edit: Nevermind. It works fine so long as you turn the mattress on its side
like everyone does when they actually move a mattress. The diagram made me
think of carrying it flat, which really only happens when assembling the bed.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Every time I've transported mine, I've ended up carrying it exactly like that,
having to grip the ends with my hands, and it's never sagged in that way.

~~~
dpark
I don't think I've ever owned a mattress that wouldn't have sagged too much if
carried like that, unless maybe I was going to carry out overhead to keep it
off the ground. You must be buying much stiffer mattresses than me.

In fairness, I've not moved my current mattress (a memory foam mattress), so
maybe that one would work? It's a bit more rigid. But of course no handles at
all.

Edit: Nevermind. You're going to turn the mattress on it's side when you
actually carry it, and then it will be rigid enough. Handles on the ends work
fine for this case, just not the nonexistent case where someone inexplicably
tries to carry the mattress flat for more than a few feet.

~~~
Roodgorf
What? It would sag when you have it turned on it's side vertically? That's
like, bean-bag level sag.

~~~
dpark
No. I added an edit that addressed that.

~~~
Roodgorf
Ah, I see now. Looking back, it wasn't terribly clear what the parent meant by
changing the orientation to carry it by, I just made the connection
automatically and assumed it was there.

------
ep103
150 to make, 90 to ship, total costs < $300. Sells for $850. Main marketing
advantage is portability, but apparently only on delivery (compressed into a
large box).

I thought by hipster, they were implying that for once someone was selling a
good, cheap, portable mattress. Turns out this isn't any of the three.

~~~
TylerE
Also COST. A queen size T&N is $600, including shipping. Go to your local
mattress store and see what $600 buys you.

~~~
dpark
It'll buy you a queen size mattress easily. Mattresses really aren't that
expensive. Now, if you want a tempurpedic, you probably need to triple that,
but you can buy a nice inner coil queen mattress for $600 if you buy on sale.

------
ones_and_zeros
What exactly is a hipster mattress? It wasn't obvious from the article...

~~~
blakesterz
I've found once I hit about 40 I started calling everything new 'Hipster'.
Something new in bedding? Well that's totally 'Hipster Mattress'. New song
from Skrillex? 'Hipster Noise'. Those beards that all the kids have now?
'Hipster Beards'. Node.js? 'Hispter Twaddle' Ghost? 'Hipster Blogging
Platform'. Uber? 'Hipster Taxi'

If you're lucky to live long enough it'll happen to you too :-)

~~~
dikaiosune
This makes me sad - the same happened to me, but at 26.

------
IgorPartola
(OT warning) So I have a somewhat unique situation in that I want a "mega
mattress". I am one third of a three-person relationship and we all sleep
together. It would be really nice to not have to share a king size bed, yet
our current setup, king and queen size beds side by side, does not work so
well because of the joint between the mattresses. I know there are lots of
solutions to the "join two mattresses together" problem, but they are all suck
in their own ways. Enter internet mattress companies. I called a few, and none
are able to make a mattress that's larger than a king, even though so far as I
can tell there shouldn't be a problem with the process. Anyone have experience
with this?

~~~
Coding_Cat
I have (unfortunately) no experience with this. But have you tried getting 2
larger mattresses (or 3 regular sized ones) and placing them down at a
90-degree angle (crease perpendicular to your body)? Further, using a bed with
tight-fitting raised edges will keep the mattresses together better than most
beds. This would most likely have to be custom crafted given the size though.

~~~
IgorPartola
The problem is that a twin extra long is 80 inches long, and a king is 76
inches wide. Basically doing the perpendicular thing I would only gain 4
inches of width. Ideally I'd like for that to be closer to 24 inches. Thanks
for the suggestion.

------
runin2k1
He says this:

"But buying mattresses shouldn’t be fun. It should be work, something you do
once or twice in your life and forget about after you’ve gotten over the
frustration of getting the mattress into your bedroom."

But ignores the one of the key features all these new-fangled mattresses have
which is 100 nights to try it free. If you're in the market for a mattress
right now, there is zero reason not to take one of the offers to test out the
bed. Keep shopping around and trying beds locally, but between Casper, T&N,
Leesa, Noomi, etc... you can effectively have brand new mattresses for the
next year and pick the one you like best or revert back to a traditional
mattress if they don't suit you.

~~~
tamana
mattresses are too much hassle to return. Sellers know that.

~~~
ap3
That is why you don't ship it back - you put it outside and a local hauling
company picks it up for recycling / donating / trashing

------
hapless
I wonder less about the product and more about the investment in this field.

You can found your own drop-shipped mattress company with less startup capital
than a Subway franchise.

So why does Casper have $70MM in funding? What does that $70MM buy for
investors?

~~~
c17r
Literally as I was reading this a commercial for Casper's mattresses came on
TV. Marketing effort would seem to be the bulk of it.

------
nathanvanfleet
Honestly I hate mattress and furniture buying because it's one of those haggle
for the real price, price is different everywhere kinds of businesses. Even
the big companies make it impossible to comparison shop because they have
different "models" in every store but it's just a different name on the same
product so you can't tell the prices. I just frankly want to buy it at the
lowest price possible etc and I don't want to put a month of research into a
mattress.

~~~
sjg007
Costco is pretty good. Includes shipping and you can return it basically
anytime.

------
joezydeco
I work near a large urethane foam processing plant. Judging from the trucks
parked outside, they make the same foam mattresses for a lot of the large
brands.

------
jlas
It's also about direct sales. Similar to what Tesla is doing with cars.
Traditionally consumers have bought mattresses from suppliers (Sleepys,
Mattress Discounters, etc), but Casper et al are marketing and selling
directly to the consumer.

------
dbot
We buy almost everything for the house online, but I can't imagine buying a
mattress online. Is it annoying to buy in-store? Yes. But a mattress is an
expensive, once-every-8-year purchase that you will use almost every day and
is critical to your health. I don't think the solution is a mystery-box-by-
mail foam slab.

Many internet companies find success just by helping young-ish customers avoid
the awkward interactions associated with traditional commerce. That's fine,
but you are still paying for that "experience." Rarely do you get a better
product.

~~~
larrywright
In the case of Tuft and Needle, it's basically risk-free. Buy it and if you
don't like it in the first 100 days, they'll give you your money back and have
a local charity pick up the mattress and donate it to someone who needs it. I
believe Casper offers something similar. With an offer like that, there was
really no downside to trying it out, especially at 1/2 the price you'd pay in
a store.

As for a better product, I'd argue yes. It's very well made, and very
comfortable.

------
k33n
> Is there anything more annoying than a mattress company that thinks it’s
> clever?

And that's where I stopped reading. Yes, there are many things more annoying
than people starting businesses and trying to do well for themselves.

------
theklub
I buy my mattresses off ebay, them are delivered rolled up like a burrito.
Cheap, easy, memory foam. I don't feel bad when I spill something on them. I
can replacement every 5 years and not give a shit.

------
dmcginty
I don't see why this applies to mattresses specifically. The author seems
jaded that companies are able to buy products cheaply and resell them like
it's a new concept.

------
anonbanker
ITT: Hipsters getting mad and attempting to desconstruct something that uses
the word "Hipster" in a derogatory fashion.

------
dates
tl;dr: omg i saw something for $800 on amazon and it was only $40 on alibaba.
And in the pictures it LOOKED THE SAME. I could buy it and resell it, so easy.
Running a business is sooooooo easy, i haven't done it but i just know its
easy.

