Thanks everyone for the great comments. I kinda wish that you wrote these comments to the discussions under the blog so that every reader can benefit from it. As it is, the comments are scattered throughout the social networking universe. :-)

I am not surprised that some of you find this argument ridiculous. It is meant to be that way. Most of us here at Hacker News are software developers. We all have a tendency to overengineer unimportant details in life. :-). An engineer commented that even the Circles were not good enough for him. And he was right. He was pushing circles up to its limits and unless Google implemented Cylinders there was no way of pleasing him.

However, all this opposition proves my point: Grouping friends and posting accordingly is a rather advanced feature that does not solve a problem for the ordinary user, because the problem does not exist in the first place.

Most people don't even realize that what they post might only be relevant to some of their friends, because most people are vain. And if their friends post an item in Facebook that they don't care, they simply ignore it blissfully and go about their day.

This is just fine for most people. :-)