There are two types of hosting companies. Hosting companies that will host your site for free, Yahoo's Geocities.com or Lycos' Tripod.com are examples of free hosts, and companies that will host your site if you pay a monthly/yearly fee like Blue Domino, GoDaddy, or eNom. So why doesn't everyone choose the free sites? Free sites are very limiting, and don't allow you to store much on your pages. You will probably not be able to run cgi-scripts. Worse, you may not be able to choose a domain name, and you will probably have annoying banners on your site. By paying for a site, you get flexibility and capabilities beyond what any free site could give you.