I have an overly simplified answer as to why Forrst is getting passed around like this.
..and that is;
It took me two long years to wait and finally earn an invite to Dribbble.
Signing up for Forrst was just a matter of clicking a link that was submitted on HN.
Interpret that how you want, but that simple paragraph reveals how and why you should strive to build and foster a community, not just push out MVP's, see if it bites, close shop and/or sell for cash. That's counter intuitive to creating value.
Dribbble suffers from this same problem too though, as evidenced by the somewhat depressing "Everyone" feed. It's more about who you know (or follow) rather than how talented you actually are. A lot of people just invite friends, co-workers or random people that get picked from a hat. There are "Get your invites!" contests every day that don't require anything but a reply, a retweet, a link to the inviter's website.
There's no way to reprimand players who [consistently] invite poor designers or people that don't post (likewise, there's no way for those of us who have invited people who don't use their invite to revoke it), or compensate those who have added valuable contributors.
I wish there was a feature like StackExchange's bounty where you receive praise, a Pro account or additional invites for onboarding someone prolific in their field or just someone that does fantastic work but hasn't really surfaced in the community yet.
Personally I'd love to see more dev/designer hybrids and ways to find those people (or use the bounty feature to promote people inviting the types of users the site is lacking). Right now there's the ability to add skill tags, but those have little to do with what my actual roles are within the organizations I work for. Being able to search by "product" or "motion" or "type" designers would help me find users to follow a lot more than just hoping I come across them through other means. Then we get into their follow cap, which.. I won't even go there.
..and that is; It took me two long years to wait and finally earn an invite to Dribbble. Signing up for Forrst was just a matter of clicking a link that was submitted on HN.
Interpret that how you want, but that simple paragraph reveals how and why you should strive to build and foster a community, not just push out MVP's, see if it bites, close shop and/or sell for cash. That's counter intuitive to creating value.