Question about proxies?

I was just wondering, where do proxies come from?? Like when you sign up for proxy lists, where does the company that gives you 1000 proxies everyday acquire so many proxies? Do they set up that many internet connections? Might be a weird question, just curious.

"Private proxies" where you rent individual proxies for your own personal use are set up by the company that owns them. Often they are also reselling proxies that are setup by other hosting companies.

Services that sell access to anonymous proxy lists are scraping the lists from public open proxy sites, and also probably scanning the net for open proxies.