system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: What are the various different ways a website generates revenue?

More specifically, I want to know how your general everyday web user can passively generate revenue for a website. If they don't buy what the website is offering (or if the website doesn't offer anything to buy in the first place) how can that site still make money?

I ask because sites ask me to not block their ads, but I never click on ads nor do I buy things that are advertised to me. Am I an anomaly or am I still doing something to generate income for a specific website?

Thanks for any responses.

EDIT: Answered.
gpt
Advertisers can pay site owners to display adverts even if you don't click them. Some sites have pop-up adds that count as a click even if you don't  follow them.

Some site hosts give free hosting to sites if they can display adds on there. Advertisers then pay the host which covers host costs.

An alternate advertising method is paying the user per view of an advert. Whether you click on them or not you are still viewing the advert (providing you don't have AdBlock). This is how YouTube pays its partners that allow adverts. Your view count is multiplied by a cost (very low, below 1 cent per view) and then the amount of users with AdBlock is taken away. 

Some sites have surveys or polls which users can fill in to get access to certain parts of the site. Companies ask site owners to put up their surveys and in return pay the owner a set amount of money every time a survey is filled in. This is helpful for the surveying company because they are getting cheap and broad market research.

Donations. Some sites have donation buttons whereby people can give money to the site owner, often with nothing back out of it. People often donate because they feel like they are taking the site owners product but not giving any return.

Don't know the actual term for this: Selling the details of customers of the site. When you buy things online there is often a small print that you don't read, and it often says they may sell on your details to other companies. This doesn't mean bank details, it means home phone numbers/names. When someone from a call centre rings up asking to speak to Mr. X they often got these details through buying them from online retailers. A popular example would be Kate Middleton's parents' party site. They made huge money, not by selling their goods, but by selling on the details of their customers.