Everyone is smelling 'negative SEO' in the air and jumping down your throat already.
I'm not really into the hand holding kumbaya thing in business either way but just to point out guys -
buying backlinks is unethical as well. Whether it's guest posts, niche edits, PBNs or shitty 2.0's. If you're buying backlinks you're also taking an unethical edge over competitors who got there from organic backlinks.
Just because it's normal on BHW doesn't make it ethical. I'll never understand the weird hypocrisy we've got going on anytime negative SEO is even possibly mentioned.
@OP it really depends what you mean by 'destroy'.
Competition in a niche generally means there's a reason people are there but there's no reason to try and compete unless you have a reason to think you can. If I see an edge in a market full of competitors - I take it. This might mean buying backlinks or gaming whatever algorithm it is to get ahead of them.
If you do mean just blasting your competitor with shitty backlinks then I'd probably say don't bother but only because it's probably not going to be worth your time.
I've done a little work in competitive niches where people do blackhat shit to each other on a daily basis. At a certain point, it just isn't worth the effort so it all depends what you're doing.
Destroy an innocent competitor and I will destroy you..
And this is just a daft thing to post.