What caused the dot-com bubble burst?

The dot-com bubble burst happened because people got too excited about internet companies and paid way more for them than they were worth.

Imagine you're at a lemonade stand. You see your friend sell 10 glasses of lemonade for $1 each, and suddenly everyone wants to buy lemonade. So you decide to open your own stand, but you don’t have any lemons yet. You ask your parents for money to start the stand, and they give it to you because they think lemonade is going to be super popular forever.

That’s kind of what happened with internet companies in the late 1990s. People thought every internet company would become the next big thing, like the lemonade stand that everyone wants. So they kept buying shares (like money for a lemonade stand) even if those companies weren’t making any money yet.

But then, one day, people realized not all lemonade stands are going to be successful. Some didn't have enough lemons or customers. That’s when the bubble burst, like a balloon popping because it got too big and full of air.