Beds exploding upon attempting to sleep on them in The Nether/End used to be one of the funniest and most peculiar game mechanics in all of Minecraft. My friend and I had a blast when we discovered that for the first time, back when The Nether was still relatively new. However, the exploding mechanics has since lost most of its original charm, and is now merely reduced to its utility as a stronger and cheaper TNT substitute. Scouring for Ancient Debris shouldn't feel so gimmicky and Ender Dragon fights, specially in speedruns, shouldn't be so excruciatingly repetitive.
I'm not sure what the alternative should be to beds exploding in The Nether/End, but these are some possibilities I came up with:
Nothing happens, beds are simply unusable (the most boring option);
Beds are usable, but since there is no day/night cycle in these dimensions, all they do is ward off phantoms back in the Overworld (the second most boring option);
Beds drop as a bed entity item;
Beds do explode, but their explosions no longer affect blocks or mobs;
You take damage from beds;
Beds are set on fire in The Nether and teleport players up to 3 blocks away in The End
While I do think it's a funny mechanic and I like the idea, nowadays people use it to their advantage and that kind of annoys me. They're not supposed to be used that way at all and it's weird to think beds can be a better version of TNT.
I think this illustrates a general issue with the game itself, rather than beds - Mojang has been adding/making ores that only generate if completely hidden; particularly in the case of Overworld ores in 1.18, which defeated the entire purpose of a "cave update" - why go caving when it is only harder to find ores and more dangerous? Even before 1.18 it was far better to find diamonds by branch-mining (even in my most extreme modded worlds (3 times more caves than vanilla 1.7-1.17; the largest single caves I've explored yielded over 20,000 ores) I average less than 5 diamond ore per hour, all despite 25% additional ores which only generate if exposed (mainly to accommodate changes to cave distribution without affecting branch-mining, which can yield 30+ per hour), and even including new non-vanilla ores, a "vein miner" enchantment that lets you mine up to 8 blocks at once, and a "volcanic wasteland" biome with 50% more ores, of which I've explored two (more or less typical for the area I've explored), I still average barely more ores per hour than in vanilla; 883.4 / 862.8 = +2.4%, which is probably statistically insignificant).
Of course, ancient debris doesn't generate at all if exposed and Netherrack has very little blast resistance, hence the use of beds (even without beds it can be mined instantly with mid-tier enchanted tools and is about as concentrated as diamond at its peak layers so it is still easier to find; with Fire Resistance to negate lava and being at y=14-15 you don't have to worry about falling more than a few blocks if you hit a cave so you can sprint-mine).
While I do think it's a funny mechanic and I like the idea, nowadays people use it to their advantage and that kind of annoys me. They're not supposed to be used that way at all and it's weird to think beds can be a better version of TNT.
I've suggested adding sulphur as a way to replace this feature so players can craft gunpowder and thus TNT without having to use any Creeper or Ghast farming or relying on Wandering Traders, this way players can mine for this new substance in the Overworld and with the greatly expanded terrain depth, it's a good excuse to start adding newer and more important resources into the game, sulphur is a good fit for making gunpowder craftable for the first time.
Players can still use lots of dynamite to mine if they want to, but they won't be as cheap as bed mining currently is, nor would they be as safe especially if multiple blocks of TNT were used making them more risky to use, as it should be.
Beds exploding upon attempting to sleep on them in The Nether/End used to be one of the funniest and most peculiar game mechanics in all of Minecraft. My friend and I had a blast when we discovered that for the first time, back when The Nether was still relatively new. However, the exploding mechanics has since lost most of its original charm, and is now merely reduced to its utility as a stronger and cheaper TNT substitute. Scouring for Ancient Debris shouldn't feel so gimmicky and Ender Dragon fights, specially in speedruns, shouldn't be so excruciatingly repetitive.
I'm not sure what the alternative should be to beds exploding in The Nether/End, but these are some possibilities I came up with:
While I do think it's a funny mechanic and I like the idea, nowadays people use it to their advantage and that kind of annoys me. They're not supposed to be used that way at all and it's weird to think beds can be a better version of TNT.
I think this illustrates a general issue with the game itself, rather than beds - Mojang has been adding/making ores that only generate if completely hidden; particularly in the case of Overworld ores in 1.18, which defeated the entire purpose of a "cave update" - why go caving when it is only harder to find ores and more dangerous? Even before 1.18 it was far better to find diamonds by branch-mining (even in my most extreme modded worlds (3 times more caves than vanilla 1.7-1.17; the largest single caves I've explored yielded over 20,000 ores) I average less than 5 diamond ore per hour, all despite 25% additional ores which only generate if exposed (mainly to accommodate changes to cave distribution without affecting branch-mining, which can yield 30+ per hour), and even including new non-vanilla ores, a "vein miner" enchantment that lets you mine up to 8 blocks at once, and a "volcanic wasteland" biome with 50% more ores, of which I've explored two (more or less typical for the area I've explored), I still average barely more ores per hour than in vanilla; 883.4 / 862.8 = +2.4%, which is probably statistically insignificant).
Of course, ancient debris doesn't generate at all if exposed and Netherrack has very little blast resistance, hence the use of beds (even without beds it can be mined instantly with mid-tier enchanted tools and is about as concentrated as diamond at its peak layers so it is still easier to find; with Fire Resistance to negate lava and being at y=14-15 you don't have to worry about falling more than a few blocks if you hit a cave so you can sprint-mine).
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
I've suggested adding sulphur as a way to replace this feature so players can craft gunpowder and thus TNT without having to use any Creeper or Ghast farming or relying on Wandering Traders, this way players can mine for this new substance in the Overworld and with the greatly expanded terrain depth, it's a good excuse to start adding newer and more important resources into the game, sulphur is a good fit for making gunpowder craftable for the first time.
Players can still use lots of dynamite to mine if they want to, but they won't be as cheap as bed mining currently is, nor would they be as safe especially if multiple blocks of TNT were used making them more risky to use, as it should be.