I'm in the same boats, both of them: the author's, failing to keep in touch and being aware of it, and yours, being intuitively revulsed by the systematic approach. I even refuse taking part in that weird ritual of Facebook birthday wishes, because I consider it somewhat dishonest to congratulate when I didn't remember myself.
This is the actual sentence you are referring to and it seems omitting the "ton of fun" part is a bit disingenuous as it clearly stands against this perceived technocratic and opportunistic use of people. The word "opportunity" is not used any other time in the article, by the way.
> Staying in touch [...] require[s] little effort, time and resources but has an unlimited upside
In this case the "unlimited upside" is set in contraposition to the amount of effort it requires. It might not exactly true (it's not "unlimited") but it's "big".
> Unfortunately, for most people (me included) this isn’t something that happens naturally. So unless you have a solid system, chances are high that you won’t reach out to people regularly and miss out on a ton of fun and opportunities.
What puts it in context for me is that first one in the second quote: this article is addressing people with difficulties keeping in touch. If you're not that, the article is not for you, and at's ok.
Once that's clear, the other phrases read to me like motivational speech - for others and for the author themselves.
If the article was about weight lifting, it would start by talking about the health benefits it can bring.
A lot of friendships are (mutually) beneficial. Others are more neutral, and yes, some are pernicious. But you are not going to get people motivated to maintain them or make new ones if you lead with that. That'd be starting the weight lifting article by listing all the different injuries you can get.
> Zuckerborg meme.
I think you might be showing a lack of empathy here.
Do note that he has different "frequency" categories (which don't have to map to "type of friendship" same way even in that one database!).
Some are just people he is interested in meeting, maybe keeping in light contact over time. Some more often. Some so often that he actually pushes his schedule to ensure regular time for meetings, something that can be ridiculously hard even without crippling anxiety.
I think it's ok to just partition our lives into friends we value -- and largely ignore others. We'd be insane otherwise. So long as we remember to keep a general humanistic value for the man (or woman or trans or define-it-yourself) on the street...
As I get older I find it hard to even KEEP UP with normal friends flung far away and separated by the distance of time. Not everyone will agree with the OP, but I'm always impressed with old friends from 20 years ago that still keep contact.
Something to consider.
That said, the system I guess shows dual-use case of CRM technology ;)
You are absolutely right that people are different, but this person comes across a little transactional and an exemplar of the Zuckerborg meme.