This perspective makes a lot of sense to me. My point is that some people are militantly against them and sometimes it's just not a big deal. A lot of companies have very narrow niches that you are unlikely to compete with anyway. If you work for a startup that makes AI powered baby monitors, it's unlikely that your non-compete is going to prevent you from working anywhere outside of the baby product industry (and you'll probably be fine in most areas
within that overall industry as well).
Of course, there are people who are going to try to enforce crazy non-compete clauses. Many times, these clauses aren't enforceable if they are too broad. I'm not a lawyer, but when I spoke to one about this, he said that courts will generally not enforce non-competes unless it's pretty clear that the company you move to is an actual competitor (again, IANAL, so don't take this at face value). Still, it's a huge hassle and a big expense to hire a lawyer to defend you, even for a frivolous lawsuit. But this isn't only for non-competes. Companies can also sue for non-disclosure agreement breaches and the like which are nearly universal in employment contracts. Might be hard for them to win those lawsuits, but I'm sure it's a pain to fight them.
When I'm considering a new company, if I google them and see a history of litigation against past employees, I take that into strong consideration in my decision.