Exactly the goal, I'm sure, of the people writing up these agreements.
Skip the usual conferences for a year or two, fail to update linked-in in any meaningful way. Keep your mouth closed, and it becomes really hard for a company to toss cease and desist letters if they aren't even sure where your working. Going dark may not be a perfect defense, but lack of evidence makes it a lot harder.
- terms and conditions apply
Some parts of society can be really weird and distorting and I have no idea how we'd go about solving them.
Again this is super weird because the only thing that is an issue is giving a negative reference so a lack of a positive reference could be interpreted as a negative reference... thus, not giving everyone a positive reference should be a similar issue.
That entire law is sort of silly in most cases though, but the cases where it isn't (ex. a malicious boss for stupid reasons) are serious enough that I understand why it's around while being sad that we need it.
Companies are just copping out with hyper sensitive HR departments. I would give a glowing review but I am not afraid of detailing why someone else is an idiot and we canned him/her. I would even go so far as saying "you're making a mistake if you hire this person". I won't be sued, that fear just simply doesn't reflect reality.
For a large company, that's a small amount of money and a modest amount of time. For the normal employee, it's a lot of unexpected expense, a great deal of stress for months, and the risk of owing a shit-ton of money at the end of it.
If you really think there's no risk to ignoring non-competes, presumably you should be willing to guarantee the legal expenses for someone who wants to try. But my guess is that you won't offer.
The better solution to all of this is not to "ignore" the non compete risk, it is instead be to simply lie to your former employer.
What are they going to do? Hire a private investigator to track down all ex employees, to see if they have another job? Probably not.
It is pretty easy to get away with this stuff if an employee really feels like it.
That somebody has decent odds of getting away with something is only relevant if the punishment not terrible. But a 95% chance of not getting sued is not great if when you are sued it's $100k in expenses and two years of incredible stress.
Will some people do it anyhow? Sure. But most people won't, and that's what bullshit noncompetes are after.