I'm all for breaking rules. I like breaking social conventions and I'm, for the most part, anti-authority.

But sometimes rules are meant to be followed.

Sometimes if you don't follow the rules you won't get what you want. 

A few examples of when you should follow the rules:

- Paying taxes. Obvious, huh? Doesn't seem to be.

- Getting a cog in the machine job. Meaning, if you're looking for a job at McDonald's you won't get it any other way than filling out an application and getting an interview.

- Requesting a couch on CouchSurfing. Now we're getting into personal experience. ;) In my profile I state 2 things when requesting a couch: 1) I only have room for 1 person. 2) The subject line of your request has to have a certain phrase or you won't be accepted.

How many people follow those 2 simple rules? Well, I get at least 1 couch request/day and I still haven't hosted anybody. Usually people don't follow either rule, and sometimes they only break one rule. But it shows that people are not reading my profile, which means they're just spamming a bunch of open couches hoping for a free place to stay. That's not what CouchSurfing is about and it's not something I will support.

- Hiring a programmer. Derek Sivers covers this well here: http://sivers.org/how2hire  He also uses the "phrase" technique to weed out programmers who just spam every available programming job without reading the requirements. Great idea! And I can't believe I never thought about it myself with all the outsourcing I've done. 

This list could go on in perpetuity.

The point is, break rules. Except when you need to follow them.