[bdowling]

If judges start to throw out non-compete agreements that don’t have separate compensation (apart from usually salary/experience), then you will just see companies explicitly write their contracts such that that X dollars are explicitly for the non-compete agreement.

At least in some industries, however, there is a consumer protection/public policy argument against non-compete agreements, where: (1) there is no legitimate property interest to protect (e.g., the “trade secrets” held by the companies aren’t trade secrets at all because every company in the industry knows them), and (2) it is bad for consumers/against public policy to allow companies to use non-compete agreements to stifle competition where there is no legitimate property interest to protect.

[bumby]

Some states create salary thresholds. For example, Illinois law states they won't enforce non-competes for anyone making less that $75k or non-solicitation for anyone below $45k. However, companies are still protected by non-disclosure agreements for important trade secrets.