[apohn]

Gmail was 100x Hotmail, if not even more than that. I think anybody who was on Yahoo Mail/Hotmail (or even something like Roundcube) who switched to Gmail probably realized how much these other companies had been holding stuff back.

I've never cared for invite only stuff, but Gmail really was a total revolution when it came out.

[mcculley]

I thought the “invite only” approach was clever. It throttled growth so they could maintain a good user experience and limited automated use by spammers.