I feel like all of these invites defeat the "cool" factor of google+. I mean, the cool thing about google+ right now is that it is new and exclusive. You only get on by personally knowing somebody and having them invite you. I am sure you guys all have friends that can get you on. But inviting strangers is exactly how facebook bastardized itself. Just allow google+ to take longer before it sells out to everyone. I'm not even sure this made sense. Inviting strangers online just reminds me of people you barely know "friending" you on facebook. Friend me if you know me, invite me if you know me.
He's not requesting people to be his friends, he's giving them beta account codes from his google+ account, similar to how gmail was correct?
You don't have to add a person to your circles to send them an invite. As has been pointed out, Google+ is much more user-friendly than Facebook when it comes to privacy controls.
The one thing I didn't like was that a stranger could add me to one of their circles. Although I could just leave this person out of any of my circles, I did feel a little bit violated. I had to take an extra step to block that person.
Would love to get an invite. Will gladly rep the kind man/woman who helps drag me away from facebook.