I’m fascinated by this story. I was searching for a new mattress months ago. I found a casper.com case study from a web designer, which piqued my interest in a Casper mattress. After some research, I found sleepopolis.com. The site owner reviewed a dozen mattresses and his opinion was that Casper rated lower than its competitors, like Leesa, especially for side sleepers like me.
Later, the site owner mentioned he was in a legal battle with Casper and fully intended on going to war until the end. It was all over his site, blog posts and everything.
I was ready to buy a couple weeks ago so I checked sleepopolis.com again to check in and make a final decision. His site had been sold, all his posts about the legal stuff were gone and I remember feeling like the valuable “human-perspective” opinions of the writer were gone.
I would love to hear the perspective of the original Sleepopolis writer/owner - he built a valuable thing. Likely his deal prevents him from ever speaking about it publicly.
Side note: I bought a Leesa and it’s very firm compared to the W bed I bought a decade ago. It’s a few hundred dollars cheaper but we will probably return it before 100 days and buy W again.
“Casper filed the lawsuit against me in April, 2016, on the same day that it sued two other websites that review mattresses. The suit makes a number of different allegations, but they are primarily focused on my Casper mattress reviews and how I inform my readers about referral links. I am currently fighting the lawsuit and pushing for it to be dismissed with prejudice.
It is my opinion that this lawsuit is nothing more than an attempt to silence my voice and infringe my first amendment right. When my lawyer asked Casper what it would take to resolve the case, Casper’s settlement demand was that I take down my reviews of Casper’s mattress and never write about Casper again. I don’t think Casper is concerned about my referral link disclosures at all – they just don’t like criticism of their product.”
I remember reading about this when it happened. The owner of Sleepopolis was down to fight, so it’s quite sad that it ended this way. We may be the wiser, but the average consumer will never know that any of this happened.
I’m rather sad that the owner sold the blog, likely knowing where it was going, but when you are embroiled in a legal battle like this and have the option to take a decent paycheck and have it all end, I can see why they took it. I can sit here from afar and say that I would have told them “no, fuck you” and fought to the bitter end, but who can truly say they would do that until actually presented with such a decision?
Later, the site owner mentioned he was in a legal battle with Casper and fully intended on going to war until the end. It was all over his site, blog posts and everything.
I was ready to buy a couple weeks ago so I checked sleepopolis.com again to check in and make a final decision. His site had been sold, all his posts about the legal stuff were gone and I remember feeling like the valuable “human-perspective” opinions of the writer were gone.
I would love to hear the perspective of the original Sleepopolis writer/owner - he built a valuable thing. Likely his deal prevents him from ever speaking about it publicly.
Side note: I bought a Leesa and it’s very firm compared to the W bed I bought a decade ago. It’s a few hundred dollars cheaper but we will probably return it before 100 days and buy W again.