I donât mean to stir the pot, but after a quick read of the article mentioned from the old bed guy I thought Iâd share my .02 worth. Itâs not the first time Iâve bumped into his site, along with sltd and others like many people looking for mattress information online.
His claim is he doesnât blindly recommend any specific mattress. That heâs willing to help people find a mattress suitable for them. Iâm not sure how thatâs any different than what Phoenix does. At one point I even recall being frustrated that Phoenix wouldnât give me a clear cut answer - but after awhile I came to realize why. That is the point, Phoenix doesnât give answers. He wonât say âbuy this mattressâ or âpick this and not thisâ. He guides people and helps them stay on track and ultimately tries to help them make their own purchase. Iâve never seen him promote any particular mattress like a salesman going after a âspiffâ or whatever.
After being on this forum awhile, Iâve seen new members (mattress sellers) added, removed and denied. If it were purely a money making âgimmickâ Iâd think all applicants who were willing to pay a fee of any kind would be accepted. Iâve seen non members spoken highly of and presented to people as options. I have no clue what Phoenixâ situation is, if this is extra money obtained from memberships, a retirement fund, day to day pay or whatever - nor do I care. Not sure Iâve seen a day go by without at least someone if not multiple people get a reply.
I donât fault Phoenix for incorporating a small fee of some kind to help support the site. It keeps it free for us users asking the questions. Forums arenât free, it involves someoneâs time (like Phoenixâs), it involves a pc, a connection to the internet, a web host, often software fees for forum maintenance (to keep it up and running). As someone whoâs dealt with professional web hosts I know first hand itâs not free. Itâs not like a fb page, a company is maintaining itâs servers and backup servers to ensure that when someone goes to the website they donât get a 404 error. That costs money and itâs passed on to the person who owns the site. Having a website domain name costs registration fees that recur annually and if the fees arenât paid the name is no longer connected to the website and will come up with an error page or a listing to purchase the domain.
As far as companies getting some sort of kickback or customers getting a discount using mention of this site, it benefits everyone. The customer gets a discount they wouldnât have otherwise been entitled. The members have an opportunity to get more traffic and sales. These are things any and all businesses do and Iâd be willing to bet in reality, no one is getting magically rich off of this. Why does no one complain about amazon? I know for certain how some things work, as I have a family member who does professional graphic design. Some of their artwork is available on products through an online store who then deals with amazon. When someone makes a purchase, amazon gets a piece of that, the manufacturer of the product gets their fee and my family member gets a small percentage (around 5% which usually amounts to around .80). No one is getting rich, but everyone makes money since everyone plays a part in it. Brick and mortar stores do it too, by way of coupons. They offer a small percentage of money back to the customer as a perk to draw that customer to their place of business.
The only real alternatives I can see would be Phoenix either paying for all of this out of his own pocket as charity to everyone. Or requiring everyone who joins here to pay some sort of fee (like consumer reports and many others). I guess at the end of the day, it boils down to peopleâs need to realize that whoever itâs from, itâs advice. Their choice to take it or leave it. If you go to anyone asking about anything it can be difficult to rationally become mad at them. Itâs not like they came knocking on your door pushing advice. Before anyone thinks Iâm sucking up to Phoenix, weâve gone our rounds of disagreement in the past. But that doesnât mean I donât respect him for his time put into answering each of us without making any of our questions seem petty. Iâve never seen him out and out call someone out in the industry to denounce or discredit them, only to respond in defense. Leading someone toward a specific choice is risky so I can appreciate why he doesnât. Not only would it be a roll of the dice in terms of someone being satisfied, imagine the heat anyone would get telling someone âchoose thisâ and theyâre unhappy with it. All of the sudden even with good intentions, that person becomes top of their hit list and opens themselves up to all sorts of abuse.
Hopefully you find a solution elapid95 so you can get some comfortable solid sleep. If youâre still having trouble reaching dreamfoam, maybe you can get in touch with brooklynbedding via their website or by phone since the companies are related. When I couldnât reach dreamfoam, brooklyn bedding was helpful and there was a person available via live chat. I also believe they (brooklyn bedding) are available in many retail stores in several states (R&S mattress) - so theyâre not just a mythical mattress maker âhiding in the cloudâ if that makes you feel any better. Some people arenât comfortable with online etailers and some like myself are grateful since my local area doesnât offer much choice (most of the choices arenât worth the gas to get there). Best of luck with your situation.
Note Added Later: To elapid95
I got your messageâŚNo problem! I will proceed with deleting your old posts as per your request.
Phoenix
