It seems that no matter what time of day I read my mail there (and the only reason I use them at all is that I got suckered into it when they offered free forwarding; as soon as I switch all my email subscriptions I’m out of there) there’s a huge delay when going from one message to the next. Yahoo Mail (which I also use) moves virtually at the speed of light at any time of day.
It seems like they’re purposely putting the delay in so you’re forced (yes, I know you’re not really forced) to read the unending popups they display (and which I don’t see, since I use Opera) while you’re waiting.
Your supposition is entirely possible, I remember one website I used to frequent had the same thing. When you went to a new page, the banner ad would appear immediately, but the actual content wouldn’t start downloading for about 5 sec or so. Neat trick, and not nearly as annoying as actual popups.
I don’t think they mean to do it… it’s just that they suck so bad, they can’t help it.
Awhile back, I stupidly put a forwarder on my mail.com account when I switched to a different provider. Mail.com promptly went through one of their periodic disintegrations. When they came back up, I was still getting the forwarded mail, but there was no record of the forwarding option on my account. Ergo, I still get every peice of spam sent to an account that I haven’t used in more than a year, but they can’t or won’t do anything about it.
The only reson I’d ever go back is if the address judas@priest.com suddenly became available.
Most ads these days are not served by the site owner, they’re served by internet ad companies like Doubleclick, 24/7 Media, etc. All the site web page provides is a reference to the ad company’s servers. So ads can be served a different speeds as site content because it comes from a different source.
I paid for the forwarding when it became a premium service, and have never regretted it. I use mail.com as a sort of hub/crossroads for various mail accounts, and it was well worth the money.
Because of the various problems I’d had with mail.com while they were forwarding my email (plus the fact that my email address had become well known to the spammers), combined with the free forwarding I get from my alma mater, made me drop them once they started charging.