Okay. Now, explain to me why people who "like" a page don't get event notifications.
First of all, event notifications only go out to people you invite specifically to your event. Second of all, if you simply "like" a page you aren't going to receive all of that page's updates unless you interact regularly with that page. You might notice it showing up in your news feed a lot for a period of time and then slowly dropping off.
You've probably also noticed that you don't receive all of your friends' updates either, but that's not because Facebook wants your friends to pay money to promote their status updates. That's because they determine based on your activity on the site what you want to see and what you don't. Is it perfect? Nope, obviously not, or people wouldn't have complaints about it. Does it work for Facebook's CUSTOMERS? Well, yeah...for people who choose to adapt instead of complaining about it. Also, keep in mind that even if you aren't a paying customer, Facebook wins when people hit your page, because they can show VERY targeted ads on your page...and the more interactions you have, the more targeted (and successful) those ads can be. Facebook gets paid per click, so it benefits them to show relevant ads. The long and short of this is that when you have a successful page - even if you don't give money to Facebook - they profit. Also I don't know if you've noticed but the "pay per post" thing is a very effective way of reducing spam pages on Facebook - they now rely on "shares" from people instead of just getting a lot of likes. This means they have to do more work, which filters out the spambots a good bit.
This has been going on for a long time in many sites, not just Facebook. For example, try doing a Google search...then deleting your cookies and doing the same search. Then doing the same search from a proxy in Germany. Then getting your friend in California to do the same search, etc. etc...they'll all have different results, other than the "sponsored links" in the box above the search results.
I don't like this, because I think it reinforces the things we already like and think instead of encouraging us to develop new tastes. But it's obviously working for people who choose to adopt it...my clients, for example.
I understand your issue Stone Soup, and what I'm saying is that you could easily change your Facebook usage to make it so your posts have a wide reach and your page has a lot of interaction. I've also offered to help you figure that out a couple of times, since - like you said - it really is complex and confusing to people who don't do it all the time.
Think about it though, man - you're complaining about something that you're getting for free. And I'm even offering to help you make it work properly for you, and instead of adapting, you are complaining. It's not hard to make it work for you. You don't even have to spend money to do it.
