comment: >
  
  In some rare circumstances I can see a businesses argument, but still it’s not a good argument other than to protect their own business. If you work in sales somewhere and then a competitor wants to hire you, there’s a good chance clients/customers may leave also to follow you if you have a good relationship going.
  And I could see in some cases where it protects a smaller company from a bigger/richer company forcing out competition by just paying everyone more than smaller businesses can pay, but that already happens anyway.
context: “Noncompetes block workers from freely switching jobs, depriving them of higher wages and better working conditions, and depriving businesses of a talent pool that they need to build and expand,” Ms. Khan said in a statement announcing the proposal. “By ending this practice, the F.T.C.’s proposed rule would promote greater dynamism, innovation and healthy competition.” >
  
  How tf is this even legal in the first place? >
  
  Because they are supposed to be for high level or super important jobs. Where the person has to much insider knowledge to just jump ship to a competitor. >
  
  Wouldn't the solution there just be to pay them competitively so they don't leave? >
  
  Originally the point was to prevent poaching employees with inside knowledge that they would take to competitors. Even with high salaries, if a company knows an employee has info worth 500k+, they can offer that much even if the average salary for the position is only 100k. The original company can't realistically have all employees at 500k to prevent leaks because companies will still outbid any offer for the info far greater than 1 years salary. >
  
  You can still be bound by an NDA regarding insider trade secrets without a non-compete. >
  
  Sure but how do you do a job based on knowledge work while pretending you don't know things? >
  
  That's not what it is. A non-compete keeps a software developer from moving from Apple to Android development for example, even though nothing about the code for Apple products would even function on a Android device they might write for at the new job. It'd be like if a journalist couldn't go work at another newspaper because they knew how to write even if they were moving from politics beat to sportswriting... Companies literally just don't want competition as a concept. It's as simple as that. Nothing a capitalist hates more than open competition. Competition hurts capital gains.