Data is everywhere
As with everything, you have probably had something to do with datatransfer in the past. Datatransfer is all around us, when you buy something in a store lots of datatransfer processes take place. First, the store sends you payment data to a central bank, the central bank then sends your bank the request to actually transfer the money en lastly your bank communicates back using the same route that the payment succeeded (or failed).

What about the bits?
Using the internet is not much different. When someone requests a web page a delicate process of shifting bits & bytes starts and will quite possibly travel hundreds (if not thousands) of miles in seconds to get you the information requested. To facilitate this the internet has millions of servers all over the world communicating together and this piece of communication (datatransfer) is the single largest cost in the online world.
Although it might not be completely clear from the contract you have with your internet provider, you actually pay your share for datatransfer.

So again no free beer?*
Sorry, using the internet is not free although free(dom of speech) is a big part of it. Whether you want to simply email or have a website, hosting and therefore datatransfer is inevitable. Luckily every Marble-X customer gets his free share of datatransfer with a hosting package. Starting at 1000Mb which is enough for showing a simple website to about 2500 visitors, clearly, with that much visitors earning a few bucks on advertising should not be a problem.

* ^{Look at what is Joomla! in the products menu}

You use hosting a lot
If you have even sent or received email, you've got a host somewhere. The host in this case takes care of storing the email temporarily until you empty your inbox, much like in real life where the postal services are the host storing your mail until they deliver it (ie. the host sending the emails to your computer).

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ?
When you have your own adress you probably would like to get a nice emailadress such as This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , when you register your website with a hosting provider you will normally receive a few included mailadresses, the amount usually depends on your hostingdeal.