Non-competes are tricky: they essentially try to extend trade secret protections to information that people know (which is hard to track), instead of information that's written down (which is easy to track, see Waymo). It seems most people on HN are fine with protecting the latter, but not the former.

In my opinion, a non-compete is something that needs to be separately negotiated and compensated, rather than lumping it into "employment." If you agree to a non-compete, you are paid $X in exchange. If you violate the non-compete, you must pay $X back (and there could be a negotiated multiplier, e.g. $3X). In the absence of agreement, the legal default should be 1:1. If you are paid nothing for a non-compete, it is unenforceable. If you are paid $1, you must pay $1, and so on.

This gives each side an opportunity to value and agree upon the non-compete apart from the job itself. Eventually, most industries would settle on standards.