> ...they get the employee's commitment to stay for that long for free.

Hmm, I'm definitely not proposing people should work for free.

> It's an okay deal for managing the risk around hiring, say, an entry level employee...

This is what I had in mind. Mitigating risk on the employer side isn't such a bad thing if it helps more people penetrate the skillset barrier who'd otherwise be excluded. Rank-and-file who train new hires benefit as well. It's soul-draining to invest myself into someone who ends up just using that investment as a stepping stone to other things.