I seriously doubt that the problem here is that Facebook is trying to make you a cog in their wheel (at least not with respect to the coding puzzle). Rather, I

I seriously doubt that the problem here is that Facebook is trying to make you a cog in their wheel (at least not with respect to the coding puzzle). Rather, I think it's just because they feel that requiring this work will lead to better candidates. If you don't like doing this, vote with your feet and just tell them "Thanks but no thanks". If enough people do that, they'll probably stop offering those kinds of questions.