Do websites need ads, or is there another method for their site to be run?

[Nama-Shhh]

I'm a casual member of this socialist page on Facebook and a more recent post promoted AdBlock, saying " If everyone did this, no greedy capitalist could exploit the internet to make a profit off of ads anymore!" This made me wonder if websites even actually need these advertisements or not. The only alternative I can think of is what the founder of Wikipedia does, which is take donations and are said to be non-profit. So why do some websites use ads? Can they not support the site otherwise? Are they being bribed by capitalists? Keep in mind I'm not politically savvy at all, just curious about this subject regarding how and why ads exist on the internet and spit-balling reasons.

[raina_vissora]

Why do sites display ads? The same reason every other type of media displays ads. To make money. Ads aren't about supporting the site (with the exception of non-profits). Ads are about increasing revenue.

Why do sites pay other sites to display their ads? Because they want to sell their product. If I own an online store, I want people to buy from it. If people don't know about it, they're not going to visit the site. The obvious solution is to advertise my site on another site that gets a lot of traffic, so more people find out about it.

One group wants people to know about their business/product/service, the other group has valuable traffic that can get the first group the attention it wants. Both groups gain from this relationship. The first group gets more people finding out about them, and thus more business... the second group earns income from providing an audience.

If you hurt the sites that display ads and make a profit from them, you're also hurting the smaller businesses that buy that ad space.

[Jake]

Some just want to earn the operating cost of their little site (paying the electric bill) some people who put in a full time effort in their site hope to make a living from the ad revenue, without income from ads there would probably be only 1/2 the amount of content on the internet.

[bull]

Sites add ads on their sites as they are being paid for it they have no interest in supporting them. They are only related in getting their money as every person here is running a business to have some income so this the only reason.
The business who give them money lso want their business to increase so that people purchase some products and services from their site and this help in growing their business. So it is also very important for them to grow their business. thats the reason why thy want their ads to get displayed in sites.