There may seem to be no commercial purpose, and when that is the case there often is none. Many useful sites are not commercial, they are labors of love. But because anyone can put up a site, you must be skeptical of the content you find on an unknown site. The trend today on the Internet is away from the unknown authors that pioneered the Internet and back to the well known brands that dominate other media. Today it is news from ABC News and definitions from Merriam Webster, but it was not always that way.
Internet traffic doubles every six months.
Many new users are not technically inclined and seem to be looking for the familiar brands, not adventure. I still find the real attraction of the Internet to be the unknown, although convenience tends to draw us to sites maintained by more traditional media sources. In fact, traditional media content is sometimes easier to find online that at the traditional source. The same is true for headline news and sports scores, to name just a few. The hardest step on the Internet is the first step.