Otherwise why would businesses pay to host interesting content for free?

See, I think that's the problem.

Wikipedia is one of the all-time great projects on the internet, and it keeps chugging along all without forcing miserable ads on its users or charging them a subscription fee or selling their data to the highest bidder.

And their donation drives are perfectly fine, and I'm perfectly willing to give them some money every now and then as long as they're asking for what is needed to keep the site up and running.

Maybe not everything should be run as a for-profit business, with an overriding goal of monetizing clicks and maximizing profits?