Please Explain Casper to an Old Man

I’ve been puzzled by the whole mattress-in-a-box phenomenon for a while, and yesterday’s calamitous IPO of Casper has got me thinking about it again.

I get that I’m a boomer and these mattresses are aimed at millennials. Still, a mattress is a mattress. They all come in boxes, and they all get delivered to your house one way or the other. So all that matters is how good the mattress is. Right? Am I missing something?

Anyway, if you head over to the Casper site, you’ll find that “The Casper”—their original, middle-grade memory foam mattress—costs $1,095 in a queen size. Is that a great deal for a superlative mattress? You can’t trust mattress review sites to tell you, but you can probably trust Wirecutter, and they’re unimpressed: “Although a couple of Casper’s mattresses had a distinct feel that many testers liked, as a whole we think they’re probably overpriced for what they offer.” They recommend seven different foam mattresses ranging from $250 to $2,200—all available online—and none of them are Casper mattresses.

Alternatively, you can look at inexpensive mattresses from ordinary sources like Ikea. Their Myrbacka memory foam mattress will set you back $499 and you can buy it online if you feel like it. They have others at price points a little above and below that. Costco sells all the usual name brands, at prices ranging from $400 up to about $1,000. Sit ’n Sleep, a local chain that’s inescapable around here, sells loads of memory foam mattresses for $500 and up.

So what’s the deal? Casper sells perhaps the ultimate in non-tech merchandise: a mattress. Their quality seems to be OK but nothing great. Their price is also OK but hardly great. They sell online, but so do other folks. And even if you buy in a store, your mattress will still get delivered to you just like a Casper.

And of course, Casper is losing potloads of money. What a surprise. So will someone please tell me: Just what is Casper doing that is supposedly disrupting the mattress industry?

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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