Web Hotel E-mail base

Web hotels are they a good idea? Someone i know has said he no longer wants to be ruled by people like Hotmail, or G-mail or any other mail, and now pays a small fee each year and has a web hotel address. Since he has had a web hotel mail, he has never lost mail or lost his contacts.  Admitted he dosent use Yahoo chat or live chat, i too find my computer runs quicker without Yahoo or Hotmail chat.

I forgot to ask him what he pays for his web hotel e-mail address what would you pay?

I've found gmail to be very good, why pay for an email address etc when there are free ones? 

I have GMail. i use this for bills and if i order books off the net etc but what happens when they start to change Things around as well, in time it will come. Mind you i see your point, and now i have a backup of all e-mail addresses on a extern hard disc

Google makes more than enough money by advertising all over the internet, I'd be very surprised if they started charging for their email system, Google has the monopoly on the world wide web from advertising, browser bars, toolbars, search engine and more, hotmail and I.E are pebbles in the ocean compared to Google.