As a software engineer working in California, I (and many others here) enjoy the labour protection of non-competes being unenforceable here. That drives up the cost of hiring software engineers, i.e. we are being overpaid.

This is why we have labour laws, to shift the balance, to make work suck a little bit less for everyone.

(In principle. In practice in the taxi-cab case, I can't say that the various regulations and systems improve things for anyone, it's mostly captured by the rent-seekers anyway, so everyone gets screwed)