In essence, web hosting is an arrangement between you and a web hosting service provider in which you rent and operate a portion of their dedicated servers. These are the computers that will house and process all of your data, as well as allow others to view the content you have so carefully created. Think of it as a storage unit with windows that other Internet users can peer through as they navigate the internet.
You must have a web hosting account in order to operate a website, since no website can simply exist on the Internet without a web server. The only exception would be a website powered by a SaaS solution such as Wix, SquareSpace, Shopify or BigCommerce, since they provide the hosting for you. Most web servers cost thousands of dollars to purchase, not including the costs to house them in a data center, optimize and secure their software applications, and backup the contents on a routine schedule. For this reason, it is more cost-effective to simply lease web hosting from a web hosting provider than attempt to be your own hosting provider.