When I read the role descriptions here, http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Role, it seems unclear to me as to what the difference is between a Lane Support and Support.
Support
"Can focus less on amassing gold and items, and more on using their
abilities to gain an advantage for the team."Supports are heroes
whose purpose is to keep their allies alive and give them
opportunities to earn more gold and experience. Supports will usually
come with skills, such as healing spells or skills that disable
enemies; and generally have low damage output (but often with a
powerful-yet-situational ultimate). Like Semi-Carries, Supports are
not dependent on items (with some exceptions), and thus, most of their
gold will be spent on items for the benefit of the team such as Animal
Courier, Observer Ward, Sentry Ward, and Smoke of Deceit. Supports are
typically paired with the team's Carry at the start of a game. This is
because the Carry tends to be the weakest and most gold-hungry member
of the team early on, whereas support heroes are at their strongest in
the early game. A Support should always forfeit kills to any teammates
who are more reliant on items than s/he is, only performing a kill if
none of his/her allies are able to do it.Lane Support
"Helpful in the early-game laning in protecting your team's carry."
Lane Supports or Babysitters are Heroes who help their team's Carry
control the lane in the early stages of the game. They are able to
either repel enemies from your team's carry and thus keep them safe,
or to allow the carry to continuously stay in the lane using abilities
that replenish either health or mana. Common traits of Lane Supports
are long-ranged right-click attacks and abilities that are highly
useful from level 1 and up. They should always lane with the team's
Hard Carry, as aside from supporting them, their lack of dependence on
gold and levels means said Carry can take all the farm for themselves
without running the risk of soloing a lane.
Best Answer
Lane support is also called a
babysitterbecause the hero will basically babysit the ally carry to help him grow faster and without too much danger. Being a babysitter means:The Support is usually assisting the whole team, and he's not focused on babysitting even though he might do something similar on the lane. Though the support role is encouraged to get some kind of farm to provide certain items (Mekansm, pipe, etc) that will be necessary to the team, where the babysitter or lane support, focuses on sacrificing a support's money and early game towards a fast rush to success from the main carry.