Nobody Wants Your Comet Invite

I’m seeing Clubhouse days again. History will repeat itself.

credit to author

I remember this story of Gmail invites back in 2004. I was super young back then, but hearing about it in my teenage years has put a dent in my mind. The exclusivity of Gmail back then made people want it more.

Fast-forward to today, and I’m witnessing a subreddit full of users asking people who want their Comet browser invites. I’m in tech long enough to realize that the more you see people sharing invites for an invite-only platform, the fewer people want them.

I’ve seen this with Clubhouse, but at least back in 2021, everyone was excited about audio-based social networking. Eventually, the hype died down. And people are still talking about invites. Because it’s exclusive bla bla. “If you don’t use iOS, I can’t send you an invite.”

We learned that making a platform exclusive is not a good strategy for very long. This only works when people actually want what you’re selling.

A browser with AI? That’s it?