I agree 100%.

My mother-in-law reminds both me and my husband every time a family member's birthday comes-up. We have it as a repeat event on our shared calendar so we already know about it and guess what...if we forget to tell them "happy birthday" then we forget. It's not a big deal.

But the fact that it seems so important that she feels the need to give us a personal reminder for it makes it feel like an obligation at that point. As a result, a bunch of the family members get weird about "happy birthdays". Meanwhile for both my husband and I we really don't care about getting all of those messages. When anyone says something like "I'm so sorry I'm late in telling you happy birthday!" we always tell them that it doesn't matter and that it's perfectly fine.