Consumer Choice: a good thing, to be sure. But for sanity's sake, should there be limits? The experience of choosing a mattress, for example, leads one to wonder whether choice is sometimes not choice at all, but a form of collective confusion, a failure of communication, a breakdown in civil society, even. Can the inhabitants of a single nation, with one anthem, two relevant political parties and four major professional sports leagues, not agree upon a range of 9 or 10 types of upholstery upon which to sleep? (see Fig. 1 below)
Fig. 1: Sleepys.com dropdown menu mattress options
Is this not a bit of consumer mockery? Who sets the mattress "Gold" standard? What the heck does "Euro" mean as a bed descriptor? And what does latex have to do with comfort? As my friend The Rebel Salesman puts it, " solid gold euro-plush? Platinum memory-foam? It sounds like sleeping quarters in a cyberpunk novel."