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FWIW, Highrise also sets seemingly "arbitrary" limits to the number of contacts you can have in an account: http://highrisehq.com/signup http://highrisehq.com/s

FWIW, Highrise also sets seemingly "arbitrary" limits to the number of contacts you can have in an account: http://highrisehq.com/signup http://highrisehq.com/signup I guess both Google and 37signals do it because it's just a quick and dirty way to manage resources. There maybe be other reasons that we're not aware of though (e.g. people using more than that number of contacts might frequently be using the app for nefarious purposes?). It's a shame because limitations like these ultimately place limits on your creativity. In the case of Highrise for example, I once had an idea to use it to manage and track communications for all of my applications users, but obviously that doesn't work if there are hard limits there. Not sure I have a moral to my little story, except that arbitrary limits are understandable, but frustrating and unfortunate.

dasil003 16y ago
Creativity comes from limits.
- beaumartinez 16y ago
  "Necessity is the mother of invention."
- jsdalton 16y ago
  That's a rather facile response. Is that what Google should say to the guy who is complaining in the article? "Oh, you need more than 10,000 contacts? Well, why don't you just find a creative solution to the problem instead. Creativity comes from limits!" Trust me, I'm sure this guy will find a creative solution to his problem, just as I ended up finding a creative solution to my own problem. But I'd be extremely wary as a developer of presuming to know more about your customer's problem space than they do, and that all they need is a little dash of creative thinking to get around whatever limitation your software may have presented them with.
  - dasil003 16y ago
    I apologize for being so oblique, but I wasn't responding to the article, merely the line: > It's a shame because limitations like these ultimately place limits on your creativity. I understand what you mean, but this statement still bothers me. Needing more than 10,000 contacts may be a requirement for many reasons, but creativity does not seem like one of them to me.
    - jsdalton 16y ago
      Gotcha. I likewise think I now better understand where you were coming from in your comment. "Creativity" was probably a poor word choice on my part -- perhaps "capabilities" would have been better, as in, "It's a shame because limitations like these ultimately place limits on what the software is capable of doing."
eitally 16y ago
It's arbitrary but probably based on test data of user experience when load testing higher limits. It's exactly the same reason behind the "arbitrary" limit of 10 users being allowed to access to a shared mailbox. It's something that makes sense 99% of the time, but for that 1% of users it's pretty painful to deal with.

dasil003 16y ago

Creativity comes from limits.

beaumartinez 16y ago
"Necessity is the mother of invention."
jsdalton 16y ago
That's a rather facile response. Is that what Google should say to the guy who is complaining in the article? "Oh, you need more than 10,000 contacts? Well, why don't you just find a creative solution to the problem instead. Creativity comes from limits!" Trust me, I'm sure this guy will find a creative solution to his problem, just as I ended up finding a creative solution to my own problem. But I'd be extremely wary as a developer of presuming to know more about your customer's problem space than they do, and that all they need is a little dash of creative thinking to get around whatever limitation your software may have presented them with.
- dasil003 16y ago
  I apologize for being so oblique, but I wasn't responding to the article, merely the line: > It's a shame because limitations like these ultimately place limits on your creativity. I understand what you mean, but this statement still bothers me. Needing more than 10,000 contacts may be a requirement for many reasons, but creativity does not seem like one of them to me.
  - jsdalton 16y ago
    Gotcha. I likewise think I now better understand where you were coming from in your comment. "Creativity" was probably a poor word choice on my part -- perhaps "capabilities" would have been better, as in, "It's a shame because limitations like these ultimately place limits on what the software is capable of doing."

eitally 16y ago

It's arbitrary but probably based on test data of user experience when load testing higher limits. It's exactly the same reason behind the "arbitrary" limit of 10 users being allowed to access to a shared mailbox. It's something that makes sense 99% of the time, but for that 1% of users it's pretty painful to deal with.