> "What were they thinking?"

There were sites that tracked ratio which required maintaining a certain ratio to continue to be a member. Some members, however, took pride in having a ratio that skewed uploads over downloads.

I personally know people who paid for T1s just to maintain their "rep" of having the highest upload ratio. Not saying this is the case, but having access to a T1 back in the day was almost a way to "boost" their rep on these sites.

I can remember someone denying me an invite to a private tracker because I might “hurt his ratio”. He eventually relented but it was a hassle. My internet was faster than his at the time so it was a factor for sure.

Many private trackers may ban you if one of your invitees misbehave.

Was he giving you access to his account? I can't see any way that inviting you to register your own account could let you affect his ratio.

The admins could mess with your ratio if someone you invited wasn’t seeding.

> "What were they thinking?"..

It’s their own network, it’s the LAST place they’d look!!

The fictional character “Dollar Bill” from the show Billions comes to mind.