Small ISPs at the start of the internet used to provide you with space that you could ftp a few html files to and they'd be visible on the internet at myisp/~yourusername.
Of course that cost them a little bit of money and storage space so when they all got absorbed into megaISPs that kind of thing got dropped. Then it was all up to Geocities and friends or you had to go buy hosting from your ISP, both of which was enough of a hurdle to stop the average person from playing with it.