The thing with non-competes is that most businesses realize that their employees could run circles around them and out-compete them without even trying if they

The thing with non-competes is that most businesses realize that their employees could run circles around them and out-compete them without even trying if they were brave enough to try. So they fear that. I mean, no overhead of a radically expensive office building plus its utilities and maintenance, those multiple layers of ineffective management, the executive cherry on top charging an ultra premium to make your company look good? Cut that stuff out and you barely need to charge anything to continue making a perfectly opulent living for a typical technology worker. And it's not like the office or any of those things actually add anything of value, they're all just maintained mostly through sheer force of will and tradition - things proven to fail at any moment. So if you sign something that severely penalizes going out on your own and competing against your employer, they're going to jump on that and treat it like a lifeline because it very much is exactly that.