Noncompetes are terrible and should be banned as a matter of public policy. But it's a legal atrocity that the FTC gets to, by fiat, throw out massive numbers

Noncompetes are terrible and should be banned as a matter of public policy. But it's a legal atrocity that the FTC gets to, by fiat, throw out massive numbers of existing contracts, because they woke up one day and decided they are suddenly "unfair competition" (mind you, not lack of competition). They could just as easily decide that companies "compete unfairly" by making employees better offers - and in fact did exactly this during the FDR administration!