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Though I do sign them when working with a client if it makes them feel more comfortable while we work with each other (which is understandable since I often need to do thorough research and gain access to source code to do my work). Other than losing a potential piece in my portfolio I feel I don’t lose much in signing an NDA in many of those cases.
For ideas, there are patents. If somebody tells you to sign an NDA because they haven't got the patent yet, they're being naive. Assume their idea is really brilliant and technically innovative. They're busy patenting it, but tell you under NDA. You tell your friend Sue, who goes and rolls it out before they do. Well, now they can sue you for the billions they will never make - good luck with that. But they can't sue Sue: she never signed anything with them, and they don't have a patent. If there's really a "secret sauce", patent first, talk later. Generally, though, there's just ketchup.
I've also seen too many NDA's that include some sort of "rights grab", such as "any ideas that come up during our discussions belong to the company."
I wish independent developers would stop signing anything that is put in front of them. It makes me seem quite unusual in the industry, and often means that the first 45 minutes of a meeting is spent explaining why I don't sign NDA's.
I'll answer from the other side, as a co-founder. I won't ask you to sign an NDA to hear my idea. The idea by itself is worthless but your feedback to the idea is invaluable to me. I won't ask you to sign an NDA to play with my prototype/MVP. It is a product and I want customers/testers/critics to try it out and give me feedback. I WILL ask you to sign an NDA before I discuss technical details that I will be includin…
I am working on some that are non-trivial, and some that aren't. For the non-trivial ones, we closely examine everything we find or come across for potential overlaps to constantly assess its potential. It is also true that these are very hard to find because people across the world have already worked on many different things. Sometimes the unknowns involved do not resolve in your favor, as in, the technical solution you were investigating does not work out. And this could very well mean that other people may already have tried that path too without resulting in a story that would be found over the Internet.
I have no reason to believe that "such" ideas are dime-a-dozen. But yes, for the same reason, chances of those ideas working out becomes rare by definition.
Keep the NDAs for discussing ideas, with a really short time validity of just two weeks or maybe just one day. In a month you can be explained all there is to be explained about "just an idea".
Beware of any "non-compete" clause in an NDA.
All NDAs should be mutual. You hear an idea, you give feedback, you have rights over that i.e. your feedback cannot be publicly disclosed to others. Wow ! You can now give brilliantly ambitious feedback!
Also if you follow the above, all those people who want NDAs signed will probably run away from you. So follow advice at your risk!