The Internet started out with a lot of promise transcending from being merely a scientific tool to an effective commercial tool. This notion of the Internet being particularly useful for commercial aspects further gained ground during the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the dot com industry was at its pinnacle.

Professionals were suddenly moving away from traditional brick-and-mortar businesses to set-up websites having an e-commerce potential. Such was the rush and the craze about these dot com models, that the market capitalization of these website models were often much more than the mammoth brick and mortar companies which had stood the test of time. These websites also started being listed on stock exchanges like the NASDAQ and NYSE, and their share values created even more hype. However, when these stocks started crashing, none of the websites could actually substantiate their market capitalization, the dot com bubble burst, and the myth was broken that you can actually make a living on the Internet.

However, with Web 2.0, there have been a number of websites and e-commerce websites which show that with a smart plan and effective marketing, it is viable to work on the Internet and make profits. The biggies in the Web today, be it Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Amazon, are hugely successful and have become money spinners. In fact, Google's shares sell for a higher price than even traditional blue-chip companies like General Motors. It is not only these big websites which are profiting from sound business strategies, and a strong business model, even smaller local websites are capitalizing on new ideas, and creating a business out of them. These are niche websites which cater to a certain segment, but have a strong presence in them.

Considering the number of users on the Internet today, it is imperative to get the maximum number of users to log on to these websites. These are called hits. It is depending on the number of hits on a website that a website can lure companies to advertise on their websites. This is the main principle on which Yahoo!, MSN, etc. operate. The other business models are those where you have to pay a registration fee to use a service on the website. Some of the popular websites in this genre are Amazon.com, Makemytrip.com, Hungama.com, etc. Amazon and Makemytrip are websites which are based on traditional businesses which they have brought into the realm of Internet, thus making the business of selling books, travel tickets, much more convenient.

Nowadays, it has also become simple for home users having amateur websites to make a living on the Internet, and this phenomenon has grown even more rapidly after the advent of Blogs. Blogs help advertise and sell home-made wares in simple informative format, which would have been highly expensive if one were to advertise on the traditional mediums.

Also, Google has started a model by which whenever a website user adds a Google search icon to his website, and a search is then conducted from his website, Google pays the website owner, thus making this the easiest form of earning on the Internet. Thus, with a sound business strategy, it is now every easy to make a living on the Internet.