It's most definitely not as simple as "cut them, and roll them for shipment."

Fortunately a mattress seller became famous at the time in Germany for breaking the monopoly here and getting all the hate from the lobby. You know what he did? He sold the same mattresses everybody else sold but significantly cheaper. The margin was just ridiculous.

After being "banned" and not being supplied shortly after he started, he came up with his own mattress. 100€. Just foam. We had it for ~5years now and I never slept so good before. The mattress have been tested as the best mattress on the market for many years here in Germany so it wasn't just us.

I know the US market is different because people seem to value ridiculous sizes and design over health and usability but this is what actually helps this scammy market to rise to those ridiculous prices.

What's the brand from the guy with the good 100 EUR mattresses?

My old school mattress was like $700 and is fine. I’m a huge fan of IKEA, and have bought everything from furniture to a kitchen from them. But their mattresses are garbage.

Cheap foam is why (what can you expect for $200?!). My parents got a 100% foam queen-size mattress more than 30 years ago, and it's still in very good shape with full-time use. They flip and rotate it every month or so, which probably helps a lot (most mattresses today aren't supposed to be flipped). I think it cost about $1000 in 1989 (about $1800 today).