Because a sandbagger wants to resign games to reduce their rank but needs to invest time before resigning a game. That investment disincentivises sandbagging.
I should clarify; I’m speculating.
What a great replies, thanks to you all.
I think the solutions mentioned all have their pro’s and cons.
But I know by now a solution that satisfies everyone simpy does not exist.
Normally after I join a game I play my first stone and while my opponent is playing their move I open up their profile on a new tab. It is normally move 5-10 before I have actually looked through their profile as once I hear they have made their move I go back to make mine.
If I noticed that they have won the last 100/100 games then I might reconsider playing them
If I noticed that they have timed out of every game that they lost, then I might reconsider playing them
If I wanted a handicaped game then I don’t want to play even with someone with the same blitz rank as me but is 9 stones stronger at live games. (drift between the 3 ranks)
Of course there is also the more normal reason of mistakes in setting up. While mistakes regarding Handicap stones and boyomi are easy to see straight away, it isn’t immeadatly clear weather a game is ranked. For this one must click game info which might not happen on move 1. Or at least I don’t check this before playing my first move
I think N moves on a N*N board is fine. If it is only 5 moves then I might not have time to have a look at my opponents profile. tbh I have never had a problem of people quiting after 18 moves
my 2 cents
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Yeah, me either, (however it is probably because I am a lowly DDK 
and can’t tell how well I am doing just because of the opening.) Honestly, if they are going to quit after 18 moves just because they are losing, I don’t want to play them anyways, and I don’t really care about the time investment, because I am still getting better at the game and having fun, even if I just played 18 moves. However, I can see that some people may not like this, and may be more competitive/have less time. So I don’t really know.
That is a great idea for identifying sandbaggers, I will probably start using it, thanks.
Good discussion by the way.
Don’t have a strong opinion on this, just want to point out something:
Time investment can be a problem if you only have a very tight time slot to play a game. For example I wake up early every morning to play a live game before going to work. If someone cancels after the 18th move, I will feel very uneasy about starting a new game.
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Yes, I can definitely understand that, I also mentioned it above in my post.
I just thought of an idea, what if you could set the number of moves before cancellation ends in a game setting. That way, everyone could get what they want.
Also, I think we should continue this discussion on another post, as this post isn’t really for discussing this.
Since we already got two accounts saying that move 18 cancel never happened to them, I should probably weigh in with this game.
When I asked my opponent why they cancelled, their stated reason was that they felt at a disadvantage out of the opening. They quickly became rude as well and said (paraphrased) that it was allowed by design and if I thought that cancellation was not to be used to bail out of unfavorable positions, OGS disagrees with me.
So there is this one more angle that we haven’t covered so far. The current limit propagates the idea that on this server, you are given 19 moves to decide whether the game is going well enough for your taste. In my opinion this is entirely the wrong message to send to anyone.
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Exhibit A:
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I find the despicable and undesireable nature of this to outweight the hypothetical possibility that an 18 move cancel window might discourage sandbagging.
Thankfully it hasn’t happened to me yet, but if someone bailed on me at the 10-15 stone mark (or, honestly, even the 6-8 stone mark) I would be quite grumpy about that. It isn’t sporting.
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I totally agree, I feel bad for anyone who has to play against a jerk who uses cancellation as a tool to win. Also, when I stated that it might discourage sandbagging, it was really just a side-note, and not an actual argument. Discouraging Sandbagging is not really the goal of the 19 turn cancellation rule, just a side effect(and a small one at that).
I still think having the option to adjust the amount of turns before a cancellation turns into a resignation for individual games is a good idea. Maybe the options could be:
N moves for NxN board,
.5N moves for NxN board,
.3N moves for NxN board,
or 2 moves.
That way, (almost) everyone could be happy?
If you haven’t already, please support this change request on UserVoice so that OGS developers might consider it in the future.
Yes, the UserVoice request is very specific. If you have something different in mind and you are unsatisfied with the status quo, as I am, please give your vote anyway and post your suggestions on the UserVoice comments. There they will be rediscovered when the feature gains enough traction 
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Sorry, maybe I’m dense, but wouldn’t them playing 1-1 moves be good? Makes things easier for you?
Or do you mean it’d be boring?
If he was only interested in securing wins then he probably wouldn’t mind but most people want a somewhat challenging game of Go, especially if their schedule limits how many games they get to play in a time period.
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Sorry, I don’t really understand your question. I haven’t vistied this forum post in a while, and thus have not read much of it, so if you are responding to something I said, then I probably won’t understand it .
I think that you mean "isn’t it fine if they just play random/useless/annoying moves?"
Normally I don’t mind when they do this, because it still gives me a chance to practice against…
1.Annoying Invasions
2.Weird Moves
However if it is a game like this one…
The opponent made a giant X in the center and then proceeded to invade every possible area of the board which was my territory.
(Sorry I could’t find an image/link to the game, it was a long time ago.)
It just is absolutely pointless. I was naive enough back then to not want to sacrifice my rank(now I know it doesn’t really matter), so I kept playing. It was also mildly entertaining 
.
Also, I totally understand people who don’t want their time wasted by trolls.
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I haven’t read most of this forum post, and I haven’t seen your game. But from what I can tell, you seem to have described the Great Wall Fuseki.
Just thought you’d be interested to know.
Just made a quick demo of what it was sort of like…
Oh, lol!
That’s priceless! 
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The N moves in NxN games is inaccurate now and it was changed to 2 moves before games are inescapable. I am posting this everywhere because it isn’t explained anywhere else on the site and I lost two games that were ranked because this thread was misleading.