So if I order lunch, am I providing the capital required for the venture of ordering lunch? Is there anything in the universe that's not venture capital?

When all you know is a hammer...

No. If you are s 14 years who is into hobbits and you are writing a fan fiction, your mom is a venture capitalist when feeds you and gives you pocket money which you used to buy a domain. She can be a venture capitalist or angel investor depending on her expectations. I guess it also can be a case of racketeering if she does that you just shut up, then you are the VC investing in your own stuff with the money you extorted by being a really annoying kid :)

Anyway, it doesn't matter. The gist is, someone else than the user paid for the experience without immediate expectation for profit from side channels and that's how we had free and awesome things.

Most of the time, it wasn't other people. People were paying for their own hosting for their own purposes, much like how I order lunch.

No, you miss the point. Because of those who were paying their own hosting the rest was able to have free and awesome stuff. The paying out of pocket to show your own stuff to other people was the act of funding a venture. Some ended up turning these into profitable businesses.

I just think it's weird calling hobbies "venture capital". But if that's your thing, at least now I understand it.