"but another term for courteous noncompete agreements with your competitors is cronyism."
And another term for this sentence is a strawman argument. Nobody at all said there was a gentleman's agreement not to compete. Please read the article.
You might argue that it is a slippery slope argument, which is not a problem in itself, especially since there is a loose definition for what constitutes cronyism, but it is not a straw man argument.
The post calls for not drawing attention to when a competitor experiences a failure. That sort of chumminess does not encourage more robust infrastructure, it makes it difficult for new entrants to compete based on better reliability, and ultimately does not benefit customers.
And another term for this sentence is a strawman argument. Nobody at all said there was a gentleman's agreement not to compete. Please read the article.