The various files on your computer are essentially "hosted" on your own machine. A website cannot be seen by anyone unless it is hosted, or resides, on some server computer, which in turn must be accessible easily and this means it must be located on some network of computers. Or, hosting network. So if you want a website, you'll need to have it hosted somewhere. Most "host" businesses don't actually own a server computer, much less a network. Instead, they hire space on a server machine somewhere on some network and then sell that space. That's a hosting account.