Don't Ask Users to Bring the Beer

While not all project teams are same, one perspective I sometimes see this being from the fact people actually "marketing" the project can be clueless about how to market in social scenes.

I've seen people (often "suit" type) expressing their mentality of "since these people using product knows how to communicate in social media, have them do something for us" while themselves being quite clueless how things work in these environments, or not even willing to learn by actually using them. (and some of those people have over-sensitibity to privacy in social network, or some sort of "phobia" in these environment...<sigh>... come on, aren't you trying to "market" the product in these places??)

I don't know if this is necessarily the case for this type of "invite" feature, but I wouldn't be surprised this type of mentality being a driving force of this.

This puts into words the way I feel so often when I try out a new app. I found your app, so something has directed me here. Once I've determined whether I like it or not, then MAYBE I'll tell my friends to get on it.

Another metaphor that comes to mind would be a knife salesmen in a store telling you to invite your friends to buy the knives while they're demonstrating them...

Ouch. Onboarding? You can't communicate if you make up words as you go along.