[HN Gopher] I sell onions on the Internet (2019)
___________________________________________________________________
I sell onions on the Internet (2019)
Author : sogen
Score : 323 points
Date : 2025-12-25 16:24 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.deepsouthventures.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.deepsouthventures.com)
| reactordev wrote:
| Sometimes you start a business. Sometimes a business starts you.
| Awesome that the author saw this as an opportunity and not a down
| side to owning a name he never really wanted to begin with.
|
| Sometimes the right business just finds you and you're at the
| right place at the right time to see it.
| dgrin91 wrote:
| (2019)
| tomrod wrote:
| What a cool story. Not tech for tech's sake, but tech that grows
| into something simpler, more efficient, and more world-opening
| for something as wonderful as the Vidalia onion
| zkmon wrote:
| That's very interesting. My domain purchased in 2015, finally
| seems to make some meaning due to recent tech advacnes. Time to
| do something with it.
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| What's the domain name if I may ask?
| derektank wrote:
| Peter appears to still be at it.[1] Very impressed by his
| commitment to the bit.
|
| [1] https://xcancel.com/searchbound/status/1996247844080996549#m
| eightturn wrote:
| peter here... we're still at it... entering our 12th(?) year
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| Hey good to see here!
|
| I have a quick question if I may ask but your whole journey
| and even the article starts with the "I'M ADDICTED TO DOMAIN
| NAMES" / Addiction to domain names.
|
| So I am wondering was there anything specific that caused
| this "addiction" (in a good way?) perhaps and has the
| addiction stopped after www.vidaliaonions.com/ or is it still
| continuing?
| eightturn wrote:
| What mainly caused it: I kept getting laid off, and that
| nonsense infuriated me. So I was actively trying to find
| ways to save myself. Great domains, via the expiry
| marketplace, slowly became an unfair advantage I could lean
| into and compete with larger companies, just because I
| owned this unique .com domain. Hope that makes sense. I've
| written a few essays on my experience being laid off, if
| you're bored and wanna read:
| https://www.deepsouthventures.com/how-on-earth/ ;
| https://www.deepsouthventures.com/on-being-laid-off-
| unplanne...
| eightturn wrote:
| oop, didn't see your 2nd question... yes, I still monitor
| expiring domain names... it's a very sticky habit, and
| ruthlessly fun... it's sortof like my morning paper.
| what wrote:
| Where do you go to buy expired domains? Also, are there
| that few domains expiring on a given day that you can
| actually go through them?
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| Oh at this point I am trying to stop myself from getting
| into it since I know that I would get sucked into it like
| you too :) since I wouldn't have the funds to buy
| websites anyway and with things like PPP (Power
| purchasing parity) working against my favour it would be
| hard.
|
| I did buy fossbox.cloud for less than a $ per year (81
| cents iirc) when I wanted to build my own cloud with its
| own nice-ities.
|
| Currently its just hosting some simple python servers and
| nothing much because I feel extremely lazy to host
| anything there because of lack of time mostly due to the
| fear of studies or similar but yea (read my another
| comment here for more context, sorry if it got long)
|
| Let me know if you want the domain xD, I will transfer it
| to ya for free so that people like you can work in cloud
| industry too perhaps xD. We need people like you working
| in vps/cloud industry and maybe I can try to better
| explain some other things too!
|
| Imagine if this domain of fossbox.cloud supercharges your
| journey into vps provider/cloud provider xD (let me know
| what you think, maybe we can collaborate which can be
| insane haha, 100% tell me more about your thoughts on the
| whole thing please!)
|
| Also another question but how much do you think a domain
| like fossbox.cloud is worth? Not that I am selling it to
| someone to be honest but Did I make a profit xD?
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| Thank you for your response :)
|
| I had seen your comment 5 minutes after you sent it but
| decided to read both of the articles and think about it
|
| You are one of the few people who can say that they
| declined the offer at google and I am sad that you didn't
| get the bean bag :<
|
| Now on a serious note, I feel like there are some immense
| similarities between your story which happened 20 years
| ago and what's happening now with the AI hype
|
| > It was a gut punch face slap. My replacement, who'd
| only been there a few months, avoided the hatchet
| (cheaper salary, I presume). I would have stayed and
| worked for free if they would have asked. They didn't.
|
| I am also like you, perhaps the thing which interests me
| is that for me coding/tinkering with homelabs/servers are
| just things which I want to do even as independence or
| even for free :)
|
| Shame that the company didn't work out. In retrospect,
| its all good now but that does feel like an action of
| mismanagement from the company's part because you clearly
| loved the company and who knows what might happen with
| the person you trained for months and how much they loved
| the company or benefitted the company ykwim
|
| You write really clearly and I really appreciate it a lot
| and I feel like this sense of flow guiding us to where we
| are is definitely true :)
|
| I recently spent a quick chunk of my month or two
| thinking about a problem that I solved for myself but it
| felt like that it could have abuses to the point that
| maybe most large cloud providers/providers might shut
| things down or would be an hassle. So I thought of an
| cloud provider which can understand the idea of things
| similar to the fact that there are different instances
| and dont shut down the servers due to complaints or
| anything
|
| I wanted to build a cloud where saas providers wouldn't
| have to worry about servers. The servers can be deployed
| for the people themselves and have hourly pricing for
| what they use instead of how most saas stuff work
| nowadays of fixed pricing.
|
| I am not sure but this idea required me to build my own
| cloud of sorts or build on another and I am just a 17
| year old guy so I thought that most major cloud providers
| are really kind of no go so I looked at more hidden cloud
| providers like upcloud and scaleway and so so many others
| and I think OVH could be good for that idea or upcloud is
| good too but the thing is that upcloud has some nicer
| features like auto-scaling in vps's/a really good support
| system that I liked.
|
| Well I still didn't have a credit card but since I wanted
| to buy vps's or similar. I started looking at lowendtalk
| and black friday and started talking to vps providers on
| lowendtalk and here and I think that its a very
| resource/cost intensive process and I just didn't feel
| right about reselling
|
| Then I started feeling like how to build my own cloud. I
| found WHMCS + virtualizor and they were paid and so I
| started tinkering even more and just today found incus
| and started to self host incus and I bought myself some
| domain name and some cheap netcup server to play with
| things.
|
| All while I was preparing for one of the toughest exams
| (JEE) so that definitely took a hit but talking to vps
| providers about finances and etc. makes me feel like
| right now is just not the time about it and the best
| thing I can do is to familiarize myself more with
| hardware stuff and buy cheap laptops and create homelabs
| with incus and play with hardwares too and get a job at
| IT/any related perhaps. Lets hope that any company
| looking to hire can take hackernews points into account
| too :)
|
| I am still in school and I feel like coding is something
| that I can do too (Although vibe-coding hell is real so I
| am probably gonna learn it and give it time) and then
| contribute to real projects along the way
|
| Honestly I still don't know what I want to do with my
| life but I feel like working at such providers or any
| similar things where I can do things like this, maybe
| perhaps even working at any massive hyperscaler perhaps
| if I "grind" extremely hard from here on out for career
| opportunities.
|
| This is also the reason why I got interested in your
| story of domains because the vps providers usually
| provide domains too and I wanted to know the finances of
| it and why you got addicted and other things so once
| again thanks for telling me about it
|
| Its funny but I used to be a coding -> finance -> started
| using linux ..... -> extremely coding oriented (both
| software and even appreciation of hardware nowadays)
|
| I find your story really inspiring because one of the
| issues I felt is that I will always be judged by the
| degree I have and things like these don't really matter
| but your story is something that I resonate with a lot in
| my own way and I am super happy that you are now doing
| things which you are satisfied with. I wish to do
| something like this in my own way. I just want "enough"
| and I don't know if it would be jobs/business which would
| be the key to that (I hope jobs personally) but I am
| keeping an open mind on the whole situation and sorry for
| the long message
|
| But your articles are something which have just resonated
| with me unlike none other right now. I am going to join
| the newsletter and have a merry christmas and a new year
| from here on out. Wishing the best for you, your family
| and your business and have a nice day Peter!!
|
| I think I might take a drop year perhaps just to study
| JEE again to focus to get into a good college since the
| competition here is immense if things don't work out but
| from here on out, I do wish to keep these ambitions in
| check as they impact my studies but I study so that one
| day these ambitions/hobbies can be my job :)
|
| Although I love the idea of a business and I might start
| one from my extra funds of jobs perhaps but the thing is
| I just want a job one day of things which I enjoy doing
| because I thought about it from sides of finance in the
| sense that retirement/financial independence would just
| mean doing things I like and I can have something like
| this in the IT/CS industry and I am young enough that I
| am still in school and even right now I can spend 1 year
| again to just prepare to get a good college which can
| play a massive role in my country atleast to get a job.
|
| I wish the job market was less of a fear mongering pester
| right now where I feel like I need a degree for which I
| need to study things like chemistry (No offense chem, but
| you just don't tinkle me the same way containers do) and
| the immense competition and everything makes me feel like
| odds are definitely stacked against me but we don't know
| how it pans out but hopefully I can carve a niche for
| doing the things I enjoy as a job one day and get
| highlighted from this "passion" that other people name
| so. My mother says that I should stop doing these things
| and focus on my studies and she's probably right but man
| oh man I can't really explain it to anybody how I feel
| sometimes but its something that I am gonna have to
| figure out I suppose. Probably gonna go back to studying.
| Took a one hour long break :) writing it and thinking
| about it but well worth it.
|
| Once again have a nice day peter!
| stephenlf wrote:
| Absolutely insane way to start a business. "Let me blow 2 grand
| on a domain name. Not sure what it's for, yet."
| odie5533 wrote:
| I wonder if the sunk cost worked in his favor here. If he'd
| only spent ten dollars on the domain, he probably would have
| built nothing.
| eightturn wrote:
| author here... you're correct - it's highly unlikely I would
| have built anything unless I had this unique, exact-match
| domain. I needed that unfair advantage to start, as the name
| sortof branded the project for me in the early days and
| helped drive new customers.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| " The way Faulkner treats his characters, I treat domain name
| projects. I buy them with an intention to develop. And I let
| them take the lead. They're the inspiration for the business
| itself. They guide me towards what they need to become. I'm
| just the dude behind the keyboard (sorta)."
|
| To me it makes sense. Without a domain name, it's just an idea.
| The domain name makes it real, and it's a foundation the biz
| can stand on. Too many people try to start a biz without a
| foundation.
| LunaSea wrote:
| I wonder how you can then produce onions as a side business.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| He doesn't. He partnered with a farmer.
| chrneu wrote:
| I've been doing some version of this since college. ...holy
| shit that's almost 20 years.
|
| It started as a bit of a joke on the "That's a good band name"
| line. It became "That's a good domain name". Yes, I went to a
| stem college.
|
| Anyway, i've started 4 pretty decent businesses based entirely
| off that bit. My friends and I would be riffing out behind the
| pizza place/bar we frequented, someone would say something and
| then "That's a good domain name" comes out. I'd make a quick
| note and think about it for a few days. I found that if I come
| back to it after a week or so then it's maybe worth something.
|
| Business and domain names can make or break a company.
|
| On top of all that, i've also bought and then sold hundreds of
| domains for a profit based off this bit. I use various
| registars when they have sales, buy em up cheap for a few
| years, then park em.
|
| After reading the OP, it's kinda funny. I did something similar
| with a garlic grower back in the early 00's. I had a domain, my
| brother worked for a garlic farmer, the farmer wanted to export
| to asia. It worked out well for a few years.
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| Very interesting, I feel like domain names definitely have
| values but I don't know much about domain names that much but
| how do you buy or sell hundreds of domains?
|
| I found websites/newsletters like https://ungrabbed.com/
|
| Personally It would be interesting to see some domain names
| for cheap and if I have an idea, I can perhaps have domain
| name for cheap or something similar to it but I don't really
| know if I should go into this hobby perhaps and no guarantees
| that I would but I am curious about resources basically and I
| wish if you can tell me more about it
|
| I feel like the issue I feel as if is that most domains would
| just be parked in there or would be sold for losses perhaps.
| NuclearPM wrote:
| > Yes, I went to a stem college.
|
| I don't understand this.
| MrSomeone wrote:
| Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)
| NuclearPM wrote:
| Yes, that part I knew.
| arcanemachiner wrote:
| My guess is that he took a meme for normal people ("that
| would make a good band name") and twisted it into a more
| nerdy version ("that would make a good domain name").
| NuclearPM wrote:
| That makes sense. I assumed posting on hackernews implies
| the nerdiness.
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| Probably: "band names" -> Science, Engineering, TECHNOLOGY,
| Math college -> "domain names"
|
| Learned about more things tech, started thinking about
| domains more than bands.
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| been sitting on fullstackjavascript.com for years. been too
| busy writing javascript to do anything with it and now I work
| almost exclusively in elixir.
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| It's a good domain name for what its worth. But are you/
| anybody not worried about the javascript trademark by oracle
| and the lawsuit of oracle vs deno and the times oracle sends
| cease and desist to even books about javascript one time or
| any conference with javascript as an example
|
| This I think is the reason why javascript conferences are
| instead called ecmascript conferences
| bradly wrote:
| I've had swiftbestpractices.com forever and still haven't
| done anything with it. Meanwhile I've been going ham on my
| latest purchase of myfacespacebook.com. It's weird the things
| that actually motivate us.
| forty wrote:
| I was going to make a joke on how fullstackelixir.com would
| probably still be available, but I checked just in case and
| it's not ^^
| eightturn wrote:
| author here... in my defense, it was an accidental purchase : )
| I thought it was gonna sell for $5k or more... but the music
| stopped when I bid ...
| forty wrote:
| I was also quite chocked that you did this ^^ I'm not sure
| who is the naive one, either you or me, but I would never
| have assumed that such a name would sell for more than 2k
| (but at least it was worth it for you here).
|
| I'm really wondering how important the domain was here. I
| feel it's more just what got you the motivation to do
| something rather than anything else then your hard work and
| the quality of the product made the rest (that makes me think
| of Dumbo's magic feather) but I read in another comment and
| your bio that you seem to feel strongly about domain names
| and how much they impact the success of a business (you
| probably know better)
| jliptzin wrote:
| Not really sure what's so crazy about that. A brick and mortar
| shop will spend way more than that on renting a good location
| for their business when they have no clue whether they'll turn
| a profit. This is just the digital equivalent of that. People
| trust authoritative domains like vidaliaonions.com way more
| than something like vidaliaonions-direct.net and they're given
| more SEO weight as well. At least I know that used to be true;
| not sure how true that is today but I'd imagine it still is.
| cpursley wrote:
| Yeah, exactly. Go price the equipment it takes to rig out a
| new upstart plumbing biz (trunk/van, all the hardware,
| insurance, etc). Startup web businesses is insanely cheap,
| even with a couple grand on a domain.
| dugidugout wrote:
| You believe brick and mortar shops put money down on a
| location with no plan at all? This is what OP did, your
| analogy is pretty weak.
| arraypad wrote:
| I've hung on to spellign.com for a bit over twenty years now.
| Creation Date: 2005-10-19T05:59:21Z
|
| The name still makes me giggle. I'd love to build something
| relevant and silly enough to put there, but I haven't found it
| yet.
|
| Suggestions are welcome! :)
| recursivetree wrote:
| One place where I genuinely believe LLMs could be beneficial
| is correcting spellign mistakes. I just don't think the
| interface is there yet. I want to keep control over my
| writing. After feeding it through an LLM, it doesn't sound
| like me anymore and changes random stuff. Rather, i'd like
| something like a diff viewer that shows you your sentence and
| the LLM's corrected sentence right next to each other. You
| can review each suggestion individually and decide whether to
| incorporate it yourself.
| throwaway0x832 wrote:
| correction:
| https://x.com/searchbound/status/1007015211486900229?ref_src...
| bell-cot wrote:
| 233 points and 89 comments back in 2022 -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32053044
| johnfn wrote:
| It got over 3000 back in 2019!!
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19728132
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| I feel as if 3000 definitely is one of the most highest rates
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=1&prefix=false&qu.
| ..
|
| I checked and its the 47th most upvoted post in all of
| hackernews. (Btw each algolia page gives 30 articles so it
| could've been simpler for me if I didn't manually read till
| 30 :) but yea, hope it gives some context)
|
| 47th most upvoted story is wild but so true. I feel like
| although we might upvote AI and what not posts in HN which
| can casually reach 1000+ at times. Deep down what really
| sells us more isn't AI but rather a fever dream of sorts that
| one sells onions and maybe the freedom we attach to it
| dang wrote:
| Thanks to both of you! Macroexpanded:
|
| _I Sell Onions on the Internet (2019)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32053044 - July 2022 (89
| comments)
|
| _I Sell Onions on the Internet_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19728132 - April 2019
| (435 comments)
| breadchris wrote:
| This feels like a relevant wiki page to mention
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_Futures_Act
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Very interesting page, left me with a lot of mixed feelings
| after I read it. First, it seems like the biggest issue was not
| onion futures per se, but manipulating the market. It seems
| like banning onion futures was just a band-aid while ignoring
| the true cause. Second, if it really is the case that onions'
| perishable nature caused the problem, why not at least extend
| the ban to all similarly perishable products? Again it seems
| like they attacked the symptom rather than the root cause. But
| those criticisms aside, I kind of love that the government back
| then was willing to shut down shady money making schemes from
| finance bros. That would never happen in America today, so that
| part was pretty cool.
| bencornia wrote:
| > The way Faulkner treats his characters, I treat domain name
| projects. I buy them with an intention to develop. And I let them
| take the lead. They're the inspiration for the business itself.
| They guide me towards what they need to become. I'm just the dude
| behind the keyboard (sorta).
|
| I feel the same way about personal projects and blogs. A good
| idea tends to be self-reinforcing. It just needs someone to
| uncover it. Selling onions on the internet seems unusual but to
| the right person that idea is gold.
| jrecyclebin wrote:
| Great advertising for vidalias. I simply have to try one now.
| whoamii wrote:
| Good luck finding them anywhere right now
| chrneu wrote:
| They're really good. The apple thing is no joke. Vidalia and
| Walla-Walla onions are top tier alliums.
| eightturn wrote:
| author here.. our Vidalia season usually starts in late April -
| FYI. If you visit our website, submit your email there and I'll
| drop you a note when our order lines are open.
| ohyoutravel wrote:
| Got these many years back after having been posted here. Very
| happy with the purchase, but wouldn't order again as my wife
| hated the smell. Highly recommended everyone order these at least
| once.
| tantalor wrote:
| It's kind of funny this guy doesn't understand his own business.
|
| It's not onions. It's lead generation.
| Forgeties79 wrote:
| I love how I came into this thread going "it would be fun if this
| was actually about onions, but it is probably something about
| Tor" but was wrong!
| glamp wrote:
| I love this post. I read it a few years ago and tried the same
| thing. I bought and then built riverreports.com
| (https://www.riverreports.com/).
| Fiveplus wrote:
| The internet was originally promised as a way to disintermediate
| these kinds of supply chains, yet we often ignore these "boring"
| businesses for hype trains. The fact that he added a phone number
| and it sometimes out-sells the website is the cherry on top.
| chrneu wrote:
| I've found more and more often the last few years that a lot of
| the long time businesses I use still do most of their ordering
| by phone. Or some version that involves talking to actual
| person.
|
| The restaurants I go to still generally do phone ordering
| because they care about the quality of their ingredients. They
| want to discuss and talk about it with someone before placing
| an order.
|
| The engineering and consulting firms I work with are the same.
| The engineers I enjoy working with are all phone based, not a
| lot of emails unless there are details involved.
|
| I'm a bit of the same way. There is a lot of peripheral
| information that we miss out on when everything is done via
| automation/email. Those dead moments when our brains wander,
| then we ask a silly question, tend to bear fruit.
|
| It's gotten to the point where I generally don't order anything
| online anymore because I can't trust I'll get what I ordered.
| When I have to deal with support it's an automated system that
| only gives me 1 or 2 options, neither of which satisfy my needs
| so I have to make a compromise. I'm not interested.
| leonhard wrote:
| can you elaborate on the phone basis with engineers? I can't
| really imagine how that wouldn't be much more hassle
| discussing details without written documents, so I'm
| intrigued
| fylo wrote:
| A picture paints a thousand words
| somat wrote:
| A picture is worth a thousand words -- but only those to
| describe the picture. Hardly any sets of a thousand words
| can be adequately described with pictures.
| h3half wrote:
| The way NASA did it for decades was conference calls.
| Nowadays it's Teams meetings.
|
| The outputs of the meetings are decisions that are later
| encoded in very many very long documents. It's just faster
| to hash out engineering details when the relevant engineers
| are able to talk to each other in real time and relevant
| decision makers are present to be able to unofficially
| bless or reject what the engineers come up with (formal
| acceptance of these decisions is of course a paperwork
| thing).
|
| So, in this domain anyway, it's not a literal phone call.
| But it's what we see as the modern equivalent.
| eightturn wrote:
| author here : ) happy to answer questions if you have any. We
| also have a twitter account here if you want to follow along:
| https://x.com/vidaliaonions
| eightturn wrote:
| we also film a lot of the growing process here:
| https://www.youtube.com/@vidaliaonion
| busymom0 wrote:
| Is your website accessible over the onion network by Tor?
| eightturn wrote:
| the only tor joke I have:
| https://x.com/searchbound/status/1263578735724433408?s=20
| busymom0 wrote:
| Perfect opportunity for you to get your site on Tor then!
| kfk wrote:
| How would you market such a business in 2026? I am from an
| Italian region where farmer grow many special coltures, and I
| was always a bit surprised why they don't try selling on the
| internet. I ended up convincing myself it is not a viable
| business model.
| eightturn wrote:
| I'd still lean into a great .com domain, as it still gives
| you instant credibility. Also leverage Facebook, as my
| typical buyer hangs out there a good bit. YouTube has been
| helpful as well, as we try to share "behind the curtain" what
| life is like as a Vidalia farmer.
| Jolter wrote:
| I live in Sweden, and almost every year I discover someone I
| work with or have friends in common with, who has a friend or
| relative in Italy, or Greece who farms oranges/olives/cheese
| or what have you. And this friend in Sweden is selling their
| produce by word of mouth.
|
| So once a year at harvest, the relative has someone drives a
| truck full of olive oil 2000 kilometers north, and dozens of
| Swedes turn up at an appointed time on a Tuesday afternoon in
| a parking lot to pick up their order of six bottles of oil.
| The prices are no better than in the supermarket, but
| ostensibly you'd get a high quality product.
|
| It's a funny way to do business in 2025, completely without
| Internet infrastructure. Somehow, I don't think it would work
| as a web shop.
| brightbeige wrote:
| There is a lot of "paperwork" to do it as a web shop, if
| you know what I mean.
| Jolter wrote:
| I'm sure taxes are part of it, but keep in mind it's a
| toll free union after all. They could easily do this
| above board and just declare the Italian VAT as they do
| selling to locals.
| brightbeige wrote:
| I think for food products there are more considerations,
| like labeling and traceability.
| edm0nd wrote:
| Is anyone really getting into trouble growing Vidalia onions
| not in Georgia?
|
| Like if I plant some in my yard and start selling them online
| or at the local farmers market, what is anyone really going to
| do?
|
| Seems kinda weird they have a government granted monopoly on
| them.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| It's a brand name, like any other. Usage of it requires
| fulfilling the brand requirements. It's like how you can't
| say a burger from Burger King if it's actually from
| McDonalds, even if it's a very similar hamburger.
|
| But even then, this isn't uncommon for food and beverages.
| You can't call it "whisky" unless you follow certain
| requirements about the mash bill, barrel, etc.
|
| (My dad, before his death, had started growing "Pennsylvania
| Simply Sweet" onions. Because you can't call them Vidalia.)
| Aurornis wrote:
| There are a lot of food and drink items with official legal
| definitions that include the region of origin. The most
| famous one is champagne, which can only be called champagne
| if it comes from a specific region.
|
| You can think of the name as being inclusive of the region,
| not simply descriptive of the variety. So if someone made a
| sparkling wine in a different region and sold it as champagne
| then they would be committing fraud.
|
| > Like if I plant some in my yard and start selling them
| online or at the local farmers market, what is anyone really
| going to do?
|
| At your farmer's market? Probably nothing. But if you came
| across a particularly grumpy person with time and money to
| burn on lawyers they would have a case against you. Not
| actually going to happen at that scale. But if you owned
| vidaliaonions.com and started selling fraudulent vidalia
| onions at scale, the farmers would likely get together and
| pursue legal action to protect their prices.
|
| It's almost like a brand. You can sell LEGO-style bricks but
| you can't call them LEGO because they didn't come from the
| LEGO company.
| throwup238 wrote:
| _> You can think of the name as being inclusive of the
| region, not simply descriptive of the variety._
|
| The term of art is _terroir_ [1], which is the "character"
| of the environment the plants are grown in. It's often that
| a region will have some special characteristic due to
| geology that allows a unique flavor profile to grow so
| these trade names are the equivalent of a terroir brand.
|
| Some designations are more strict than others, though. IIRC
| in the case of Vidalia onions the soil is low in sulfur so
| the biochemical pathways in onions that produce astringent
| compounds are nutrient starved. As far as I know most sweet
| onion varieties nowadays are grown in similar soil, but
| they're not legally allowed to call them Vidalias.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terroir
| eightturn wrote:
| If you grow them in the Vidalia region (20 counties around
| Vidalia, GA), you're aok... but if you grow them outside of
| that area, and call them a Vidalia, you'll get into hot
| water. The law mainly came into existence cause Texas farmers
| began growing regular yellow onions and slapping the
| 'Vidalia' name on it, and customers would get pissed. So all
| the Vidalia farmers got together and got a Federal law passed
| that says you can only call an onion a 'Vidalia' if it's
| grown in our special region down here where we have sandy,
| loamy soil that contributes to the mild, sweet taste.
| LadyCailin wrote:
| It's only Vidalia if it's grown in the Vidalia region of
| France, otherwise it's just sparkling onion.
| forty wrote:
| Yeah thanksfully in Europe we have AOP / AOC (protected
| name of origin) so that names can have a meaning. Good
| that Vidalia farmers seem to have managed to do the same
| somehow.
|
| Regarding Champagne, the funniest part is that Russia
| granted exclusivity of the name to some local sparkling
| wine, such that actual wines from the Champagne aera need
| to use some alternative names there ^^
| pverheggen wrote:
| It's similar to French wines and cheese. News to me that we
| have this in the US but it totally makes sense. We have a few
| of these in the PNW, like Hermiston melons and Walla Walla
| onions.
| forty wrote:
| It's a broader EU thing (named AOP - protected designation
| of origin) rather than French only, though you are right
| that France has plenty of those for wines and cheese. But
| it's also protecting Greek Feta, Italian Parma ham,
| Scottish Shetland Wool, etc
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Nurnberger Rostbratwurstchen and Munich Beer come to my
| mind from Germany!
| phl wrote:
| just came here to say that this has been one of my favorite
| pieces of writing i came across on hn ever (i read it back in
| 19)
| eightturn wrote:
| appreciate that, phl.
| jmkd wrote:
| I live in a mountain valley in Mallorca where hundreds of tons
| of perfect Canoneta oranges fall to the floor and rot each year
| because the cost of picking them outweighs their market value.
| The valley became wealthy from this fruit in the 19th century
| but the economics no longer add up. [0]
|
| At the same time the price of orange juice (elsewhere) has
| skyrocketed [1], yet this rural community seems unable to take
| advantage.
|
| What would you do?
|
| [0] https://ruralhotelsmallorca.com/guides/The-History-of-
| Soller... [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c397n3jl3z8o
| cpursley wrote:
| I was shocked by this in rural Spain as well. Just tons of
| high citrus and olives rotting on trees because their harvest
| can't be done mechanically.
| leobg wrote:
| You have Mr. Kraus making sorbet and selling that on the
| internet, don't you? Though I guess he doesn't come close to
| using up all of the supply... and his domain name is a bit
| more complicated than what Peter usually goes for. I can't,
| to this day, remember how to pronounce Soller. We keep asking
| the locals every time we visit. Do you own a grove yourself?
| eightturn wrote:
| I tend to avoid projects where the economics are challenging,
| or where the demand has fallen off. Vidalia is unique because
| it's a boutique item, not a commodity. Because of it's unique
| nature, we're able to charge premium pricing, allowing us to
| stay in business (& even at our premium prices, the margins
| are razor thin, so we're constantly watching bottom line).
| While I tremendously enjoy this project, this is not an easy
| business to operate.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > Some folks can eat them like an apple. Most of my customers do.
|
| My grandfather and my cousin, who he pretty much raised were
| eating regular red or yellow onions like apples like that. I had
| never seen anyone else do that. They would make an onion "salad"
| which was just cut up onion with olive oil and salt.
| vednig wrote:
| I love this guy's marketing honest and compelling
| MagicMoonlight wrote:
| This is the kind of thing I'd like to do. I have so many ideas,
| but I'm not sure how to actually make them happen.
|
| How much money does it take to start something like this?
| ciconia wrote:
| > Them: We leverage automated machine learning to enhance your
| existing BI visualizations with more proactive insights
|
| > Me: I sell onions on the internet
|
| That's exactly how I feel about AI! Instead of all that useless
| nonsense, just keeping it real, doing something that's actually
| useful for individuals and for society.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I love onions, but never tried a Vidalia. We have Walla Walla
| sweet onions out here and I suspect they're pretty similar.
| devilbunny wrote:
| They're similar enough that my aunt, who has lived in the PNW
| for ages, but grew up in the South, described Walla Wallas as
| "basically just like a Vidalia, but grown here".
|
| There's nothing particularly special about the onion variety -
| it's just a mild yellow onion. It's the soil.
| j-krieger wrote:
| > but for kicks & giggles, I dropped in a bid around $2,200
| 'cause I was confident I'd be outbid
|
| Boy do I wish I could just drop 2k on a whim for a vanity project
| chairmansteve wrote:
| A lot of people pay a lot more than that for vanity vehicles,
| kitchens etc
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| Not to minimize the amount (2k is a lot), or obligations you
| may have (family, etc), but sometimes you can change your life
| in small ways to make those sort of impulse buy more
| affordable. Renting a room instead of a house, buying an old
| used car instead of new, etc. These kinds of changes are (to
| me) a small inconvenience, with big rewards
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