I don't look down my nose at people "who do something like sell a product" - I have great respect for their skills, and for what they do. I, too, sell products and provide services, I just do it in a different context, albeit still computer based. Business-wise the activities have a lot in common. I'm trying to point out that the skills required in scraping databases and arranging things on screens is not what I do, and I find it hard. If nothing else it's an acknowledgement that people who do web development are skills I don't have.

    I find it hard to believe that you have a hard time
    figuring out something like this without reaching out
    to the community in this manner.

And I have a hard time believing that people struggle with some of the elementary math I see questions about, but I generally assume that they have other skills, and that this stuff is hard for them, so that's why I do what I can to help when I get the opportunity. Different people have different skills, different training, different experience and different talents.

    What I was asking about is the fact that I have been
    reading HN for about a year now and I've never seen
    a "story" like this come into my news feed. I was
    wondering why one suddenly popped.

Well, I've been reading HN for about 5 years now, and I've seen them before. Not often, and usually they are fleeting because the answers come quickly and efficiently, so the item never makes it to the Front Page. It doesn't have to.