Everybody needs to merge early so there is no slamming on the brakes as people try to merge last second. You should converge early and hopefully there is little to no slow down because the flowing lane can absorb the cars from the lane that will be ending.

But at certain traffic levels, there's just too many cars so everyone is going to have to slow down anyway. At that point, everybody transitions to the zipper merge at the end of the lane and no early merge allowed. The transitions between these two situations is sometimes unclear but as soon as there is any stopping, going to the end is desirable. And people should be aggressive to clear the choke point and there should be no early merging.