I sell onions on the Internet (2019)

Appeal of the story & “boring” businesses

• Many commenters love that this is a simple, tangible business rather than a hyped tech play or AI startup.
• The piece is seen as inspirational: proof that a small, weird, specific idea can become a real livelihood.
• Several mention rereading it over the years and still finding it motivating.

Domains as foundation and “unfair advantage”

• A main theme is using strong, exact-match .com domains as the seed of a business.
• Commenters debate whether spending thousands on a domain is “insane” or just the online equivalent of paying for prime retail location.
• The author confirms the sunk-cost effect and the branding power of a great domain were crucial to starting; after that, product and service quality matter more.
• Others share stories of businesses built from joke domain ideas and modest domain flipping.

Domain-hoarding, speculation, and anxiety

• Many admit to stockpiling domains they never build on, renewing them yearly as “aspirational.”
• Some hold high-cost names (e.g., premium strings) they feel unable to let go of, despite financial strain.
• There’s curiosity about where to find expiring domains and concern about whether this hobby mostly leads to parked, unproductive assets.

Operations, marketing, and the human touch

• The author partners with farmers rather than growing onions personally.
• Phone orders are highlighted as surprisingly important; for some customers, talking to a human is more trusted than a web form.
• Commenters generalize this to other industries: real relationships with a recognizable person still drive repeat business more than automation or chatbots.
• Questions arise about whether the business is truly about onions or more about lead generation and aggregation of demand.

Regulation, geography, and food branding

• Discussion covers Vidalia as a legally protected name tied to a specific region and soil, likened to champagne or other geographic food designations.
• Selling onions grown elsewhere as “Vidalia” is described as potentially actionable at scale.
• EU-style protected designations and the broader concept of terroir are mentioned and mildly debated.

Agricultural economics and similar ideas

• Commenters bring up other specialty crops (citrus, olives, sweet onions in other regions) that sometimes rot unharvested because unit economics don’t work.
• Attempts to replicate “sell specialty produce online” in places like Mallorca face challenges: logistics, regulation, low margins, and previous failed brands.
• The author notes he avoids markets where demand is weak or purely commodity-priced; the “boutique” nature of Vidalias allows premium pricing, albeit with thin margins.

Desire to emulate & practical questions

• Several readers say this is exactly the kind of small, useful business they’d like to run and ask what it would cost to start something similar.
• Others share their own domain-based side projects (rivers, bandanas, VS Code extensions) inspired by the article.
• There’s open curiosity about whether great domains and SEO still matter as much in a social-media-dominated world; consensus in the thread is unclear.

Meta & recurring popularity

• Commenters note this essay has repeatedly hit the HN front page (2019, 2022, 2025) and ranks among the site’s most upvoted stories, seen as emblematic of the community’s affection for small, grounded, internet-powered businesses.