Non-competes are protectionism for larger businesses over small/medium businesses and try to own employees skills that they may have brought to the company or client themselves.
As a freelancer, contractor and self-employed business owner/worker, please make these illegal, tired of these.
The worst part about non-competes is they are blanket protectionism usually and up to 2+ years of non-compete, this sometimes happens on a job that is only 1-3 months. You have to laugh at those types of situations. Usually the client will push them aside or lower the time to the job plus some time, but both non-competes and arbitration agreements are horrible for workers in today's economy where people change jobs frequently and many are self-employed/freelancing/contracting. NDAs are plenty enough to protect companies from clients and work done specifically for the projects.
After SCOTUS upheld arbitration agreements [1] I am worried if non-competes become fully legal which they are not in extreme cases except in California [2]. The FTC is looking into non-competes now and they should be illegal [3].
We need to move the way of California and make non-competes null and illegal, it hasn't stopped innovation in CA and may be a big reason why so much innovation goes on in Cali.
The non-compete should not exist. At the core, removing competition from skilled workers in our economy is bad all around, unless you are one of the current big fish.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/21/business/supreme-court-up...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/business/noncompete-claus...
[3] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/events/2020/01/non-competes-...