

Ask HN: Why Gmail '50 invites left' feature still exists? - skbohra123

Totally useless when it's open for all, why that box still present there?
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jonafato
My guess: it would be more work to take it out than to do nothing.

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schumihan
But why do they not hide the interface directly?

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fookyong
because it's not _hurting_ their user acquisition by giving users the option
to directly invite people, even if it's open for all.

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marquis
From my experience, and I may be incorrect, if you invite someone from Gmail
they do not need to verify the account via an SMS message.

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limmeau
My guess: for those cases when you want to invite someone. You could either
tell them "just click yourself through mail.google.com" or send them a ready-
made link in one go. Some people may prefer the latter.

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schumihan
I think this is reasonable.

My guess: Gmail wants you to invite somebody in your contact list directly.
And they are reluctant to reset the cap of invitation because there are so
many users in the system.

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skbohra123
why not just remove the line '50 invites left' and substitute it wit something
better like 'invite someone'

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Andrenid
Probably to stop spammers taking advantage of it. Invitees don't need to
verify their accounts, so a spammer could make 1 legitimate account, and then
invite themselves a few hundred times for instant new verification-free spam
accounts.

Just a guess.

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pedanticfreak
The illusion of limited supply makes Gmail accounts appear more valuable even
if you're smart enough to realize that's not the case.

