[danielrhodes]

I don't think the answer is so binary. Just because you like a product/company/person's page does not mean that you always want to hear from that page. The EdgeRank algorithm is supposed to rank social response and especially your friend's engagement in determining the importance of a post. However, there are clearly cases where the poster would want to attribute increased importance to that post and make sure that more people than usual see it (e.g. an important announcement). That is what Facebook is charging for: the ability to get around its algorithm. I think the problem in the past year for many brands is that Facebook has not had this feature, and the fact that you can pay for it is probably reassuring to many companies because it means they have a guaranteed channel if they need it. The alternative: people get annoyed with liking pages because they are too noisy and start unliking everything and you ruin the channel.

[jeffwidman]

For those who don't know what EdgeRank is, start with this primer: http://edgerank.net/