Gross is the amount you start with, it has no deductions or anything taken from it.

Net is the amount you end up with in your hand after everything has been taken out.

So for income, in terms of salary for example, your gross might be $1,000

After they take taxes, medical, christmas club, life insurance, pension, etc out, you end up with a NET of $582.23

Stocks/investments/crypto can also have taxes taken from them, broker fees, etc. The same terminology applies

Your Steem has a GROSS value of $1,000 but after you cash out into USD you only receive NET $854.45 for example.

Personally I always thought the terms were backwards.

It's always GROSS how little I end up with and I need a NET to keep as much of the original value as possible.

But hey, I'm a strange one