I never said that everyone was going to feel the same way about it xD Nor did I ever call it silly. I'm not saying that you should like it, I'm just not really understanding the concerns about being watched, because it's all stuff that people can watch already anyways. The notification system just makes it less work. I mean, if I really wanted to follow your online movements, I could refresh your journal a lot for new posts, I could watch all your comms to see your posts/comments in them, I could watch your friends and check for your comments in there, I could check out your userpics every day to see if you've uploaded anything new... yes, it's more work, but it's the exact same thing the notification system is doing. So, I guess I'm just not really seeing the difference here?

But I do agree that there should be an opt-out for those who don't want it. There are a lot of features on LJ that I don't like that have opt-out, so this one needs it as well.