I’m sure this is a silly question, but I am completely stupid when it comes to economics stuff, so I hope someone can enlighten me.
How do websites make money? Not the ones that sell stuff - that even I understand - but the ones that are info based or offer a free service. For instance, I know google is worth a pasquillion dollars, but I use it for free, so where do they get their money? I vaguely get that in that case it’s stock related, but why do people invest in it?
And what about sites that don’t sell anything, but just offer info, like snopes or imdb? Can they make money? Just from advertisers, or what? How much would it cost to advertise on a site like that? If I (well, not me exactly, but someone clever and knowledgable about stuff like this) started a website offering info about, say, turtle racing, and it became hugely popular, could I live off it? Again, how? Advertising?
So I guess it’s actually a whole bunch of silly questions.
Thanks!