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I answered "It's a place where people can talk to each other about things they find interesting." He didn't get it, which makes sense since it isn't really a "place" and there are no visible "people" here.
So I figured I would propose it to you all, how would you explain HN to a 2 year old?
Children at this age ask "why" questions often in rapid succession. I am not sure it actually matters what the "best answer" is. What is likely important to him is that you are engaging with him.
I consider curiosity in a child to be a valuable resource to nurture. If you make it a positive experience for the child, he'll want to do it again. Careful not to appear annoyed, because then, as it resulted in a negative experience, the child will know to avoid doing such things in the future.
If I had the time (and I probably would because I consider it important), I would just go down the rabbit hole and explain the internet in the simplest terms possible. You press some buttons and other people around the world see the buttons you pushed and they press some buttons and you can see them too. With every new inevitable question, just keep explaining in terms the child is able to understand, and keep going…
On the other hand, when the cause/effect is behind the scenes, not tangible, simple explanations end up leading him down a (funny) road of misunderstandings. I was trying to explain to him the idea of place values when reading numbers, which is surprisingly hard to explain short of memorizing numbers. He came up with some great questions, all of which indicated he was on a totally different page.
It depends which toolset the 2 year old is currently using.
If I had the time (and I probably would because I consider it important), I would just go down the rabbit hole and explain the internet in the simplest terms possible. You press some buttons and other people around the world see the buttons you pushed and they press some buttons and you can see them too. With every new inevitable question, just keep explaining in terms the child is able to understand, and keep going…
I've found that when there's something that I can SHOW him, some cause/effect, simple explanations stick. For example, how keystrokes make matching letters and numbers appear on screen, how we can find a picture of a truck and print it out, or a model of his BRIO railroad and make it on the 3D printer. On the other hand, when the cause/effect is behind the scenes, not tangible, simple explanations end up leading him…
I especially like those 10x10 abacuses that have 5 beads in one color and 5 beads in another color, switching the order after 5 lines. I got this one for my cousin:
https://www.amazon.com/Learning-Resources-10-Row-Rekenrek-Co...
It helps in visualizing a 1 digit number in more digestible pieces to help working with it in one's head.
Another idea is to use money to emphasize the "worth" of each place value. For example, the first place value could represent pennies, the second dimes, and the third dollars, so each is worth 10 of the place/digit on the right. You can say that it's inconvenient to hold a lot of currency tokens. Why carry 100 pennies or 10 dimes when you can carry a dollar? So, making a number is like reducing the amount of coins or cash notes we carry for the same amount of money.
Yet another idea is to simply show him a giant list of numbers and explaining the patterns in the sequence.