The cloud is a model of web hosting that treats servers and other infrastructure as services. In the past, web hosting meant paying for resources upfront for the entire month. You would pay the same price, regardless of how many resources you used on a server. Someone who has maxed out a server at a 99% utilization rate pays the same as someone who barely used their server. It meant that the people who didn't use the servers were paying a lot more than they needed to, which was also bad for the web host. The web host couldn't maximize income, as they got the same income, no matter the resources that their clients were using. The cloud model is beneficial because you only pay for the resources you use. Everything is billed by the hour, making it exceptional value for the web host and user.