[mattmaroon]

That logic melts down when it meets the ecosystem that churns out 5 Farmvilles or Slot Manias a day. Suddenly a rotating set of 1% of your friends list can make using Facebook so painful you'll stop, permanently.

So many new apps launch that banning notifications by app gets tedious. They all suck in different groups of your friends, so banning notifications by friends is tedious. Not forever, perhaps, but long enough to make you think ill of Facebook.

We've been there before, and even though as a developer I miss it, it was the right thing of Facebook to do.