The reason I mentioned the dot com bubble is because a lot of the companies back then failed because they couldn't figure out a sustainable business model. It was mostly hype-driven with the idea of getting users first, then figuring out monetization later.

That's why we have ad-supported sites today. It was the main business model that was the most sustainable.

There were a lot of small sites, sure, but a lot of them were hosted on services with no real business model. Even back then, not a lot of people self-hosted.