Hi DanielH,
You may certainly have tried but you didn’t quite succeed. One of the goals of the site when I first started it was to cut through most of the misinformation that is on the web and to help educate consumers with factual information and cut through the marketing information that is so common.
While it’s certainly true that consumers are exposed to a lot of misinformation when they are doing their research … one of the most misleading sources of information about mattresses is mattress reviews and not the information on the websites of manufacturers and retailers. Unfortunately they also carry disproportionate weight in consumer perceptions and decisions who don’t really realize that it’s usually best to ignore them … or at least take them with a big grain of salt (whether they are good or bad). This isn’t because they are shills or lies … but because in almost all cases consumers just don’t know how to assess the quality or value of a mattress and mistake their own experience on a mattress with it’s quality. This ends up feeding into a herd mentality where people buy on the approval of others and the number of misinformed opinions or information from people who know little to nothing about mattresses replaces actual research. This is a lot like coil counting when you choose a mattress (where the number of coils has little to nothing to do with the quality or suitability of a mattress). This is one of the reasons this will never be a review site and why I respond to and “correct” some of the reviews that are posted here so that they can act as a source of education for the many others that will read it. You can read more of my thoughts about mattress reviews in post #13 here.
Part of this is to help consumers replace hindsight with foresight and to help them recognize the difference between the suitability of a design based on the needs and preferences of an individual and the actual quality and material value of a mattress. This can also help them evaluate the benefits and risks of their purchase and take it into account in their personal value equation without minimizing or discounting either one. In today’s world where any anonymous consumer can post their thoughts and opinions about a mattress in hundreds or places around the net and their words or implications can be easily interpreted as being factual by consumers who don’t know any better … it was important to me that at least one site on the internet didn’t allow the incorrect or misleading information in many reviews or the implications they contained be left without comment so that good quality and value manufacturers (and there are not nearly enough of these in the industry) aren’t harmed by reviews that contain statements that either directly or by implication (some more subtle than others) aren’t correct. The most common consumer mistake is in confusing individual preferences or the comfort and support of a mattress with its quality and value.
There are several things that you said that either directly or through implication say things that cross the line between expressing individual preferences or opinions (which are always welcome) and implying fact. You also used some of the information I provided you as a form of justification that you were “seeing things rightly” when you weren’t … or at least not completely.
All the components and the design information that was the basis for your comments was easily available to you before you made your purchase and every one of your experiences could have been predicted by following the steps in the “read first” post or with questions on the forum including testing mattresses that had quilted covers and mattresses that didn’t. There are many people who prefer a quilted cover quilted with either natural or synthetic fibers or with polyfoam and there are also many who prefer sleeping as directly on the latex as possible. This isn’t better or worse and doesn’t make the mattress any less of a “latex mattress”. Latex is an unusual and highly resilient material and some people who don’t like the feeling of sleeping directly on latex find that it produces a feeling that they often call “pushback” while for others with the right design this same feeling is called “uplifting comfort and support” or even “sleeping on a cloud”. Everything depends on individual preferences and perceptions and when a post implies that a certain design that many people like is somehow a design flaw when it isn’t it needs to be made clear that they are only speaking about a personal preference. In the same way I doubt that most people would even be able to clearly discern the effect of an enclosed core deeper in the mattress without trying the exact same mattress where the latex layers were not enclosed. Speculation from those who have little experience or knowledge about mattress construction can be harmful … intended or not … because it places seeds of doubt about whether the information is factual or just a personal preference.
There was more in your post that crossed a line that implies that your own opinions were more factual or accurate than they were and these types of reviews have an undue and disproportionate influence on the perceptions and opinions of others that read them. One of the worst ways to buy a mattress is reading reviews because there are so few consumers that are reviewing the quality of a mattress (and identifying all the materials inside it) vs reviewing the suitability of a mattress which is unique to each individual (along with their body type, sleeping style, and general preferences to give their comments some meaning).
So I’m actually grateful when these types of posts are made on the forum because it provides a chance to more clearly make the points that are expressed so often on the site and help people understand that there are many more subtle factors and tradeoffs involved in mattress design that can make a real difference one way or another. Without a reference point of your own personal testing … an online purchase (or any purchase) can be risky. The “defense” you referred to is not because they are a member (I have done the same thing with manufacturers that were not members) but because of the implications in your post that others wouldn’t have the knowledge or experience to understand that you were only expressing your own thoughts about the mattress as it relates to your specific preferences and not making any comments about the quality or value of the mattress or its design. Your comments were too general in scope and implication in other words and it wasn’t clear enough that you were only expressing comments about how the mattress “felt” to you rather than making comments about the quality of its construction.
As you mentioned … the “tone” or “vibe” of written information says as much as the words themselves and some of what you said is a great example of why foresight is much more valuable than hindsight or making negative comments after the fact. Perhaps the implications or the tone wasn’t what you intended but it was included in your post. Your information and thoughts would have carried much more weight if you had posted them or asked questions about them before you made your purchase rather than making judgements about them afterwards. I doubt that some of the substance or implications of your post would have been expressed the same way if you were happy with your mattress when the facts about its construction, design, quality, and value would have been the same.
Hopefully this will help you understand why I use posts like yours to make a point and help educate those who follow so they don’t make the same mistakes and others who read your post and the response really can be in a better position to replace hindsight with foresight, develop more reasonable expectations for a purchase, and be in a better position to evaluate the benefits and risks of any purchase before the fact rather than after.
Phoenix