The upshot will be services that I enjoy more and provide me with more of a return on my time.

The situation you describe is reasonable, and I don't think anyone should really take offense at. And I may actually be guilty of labeling people with a lot of followers who follow/un-follow me quickly as gamers instead of people who decided I had too many FriendFeed links in my Twitter stream, etc.

But the bottom line is that, at least for me, I need to un-couple the activities of people following me with my own activities on Twitter. The two shouldn't have a direct relationship. And when I re-visit who I *want* to follow, I will also throw away any expectations of them following me back, or following people who follow me.

In other words, if someone on Twitter or FriendFeed comes to my attention, via a blog or because they follow me there, I then will attempt to make a judgment based on my interests and what I am looking for, to follow them. And by doing that., by making that single decision, I am free of the dual burdens of mutual following and stress over why they aren't following me.

It reduces the only question down to, who do I really want to follow?

I know you're speaking of accounts that blatantly game other users at a much higher rate and we need to help fix that. I hope unfollowing doesn't suddenly carry a negative vibe.

It's not you. It's me.

So in other words, I intend to dedicate more of my attention to (perhaps fewer) people based more on what I find interesting and compelling about them, rather than a somewhat arbitrary rule of you-follow-me, I-follow-you.

It's like a game. Of course we know where WE post our stuff, after all, WE posted it! But it's a very sophisticated technique we use to ensnare more people in to the collective. We present the facade of individuality by using different types of blogs of different sizes and authors to lure unsuspecting people into our evil trap! Mua-ha-ha!

Ok, I'm pulling your leg, obviously. And I'm sorry if, as a group, writing about Twitter and FriendFeed is now 'beating a dead horse' so to speak. But as long as those services continue to be popular, you will probably have to steel yourself against forever new posts being written. I mean, I am totally sick of newspaper articles about outgoing president W, but they keep writing them! ARGH! Why can't I just not read them all!

It's hard to not follow folks when they've decided they are interested in what you have to say. But the way I see it, I'll just be ignoring those people anyway and I'll have more time to offer those who I'm really interested in.