This tactic encourages investors to hold shares for the long-term. So the big question is whether to buy a load fund or a no load fund. There is nothing inherently better about load funds. As a group, they don't offer investors a better rate of return or a higher yield. Investors generally want to minimize their expenses, since any expenses cut directly into returns.
Most mutual funds are open-end funds.
Open-end funds can sell as many shares as they want to customers, and continuously sell shares. If an investor wants to purchase more shares of the fund, the fund company issues new shares. When investors want to redeem their shares they sell them back to the fund company, rather than selling them to other investors, as they would do with a stock. This is the per share value of all the securities in the fund's portfolio and is calculated on a daily basis at the market close. Fund companies also have the option to close the fund to new investors.