For fifty years the deal was simple: an agency owned your calendar, took its cut, and in return put you in front of the few people who booked faces. Scarcity was the whole business. There were three magazines and one casting director, and they sat behind a desk you could not reach without representation.
That desk is gone. In its place is a feed - ten thousand of them - run by founders who need a face this week, not this season. They are not looking for a comp card. They are looking for a person who looks like the person who will actually buy the thing.
When the buyer can find you directly, the middleman disappears. The agency's scarcity becomes your freedom: you keep your calendar, your rate, and your name - and the work gets looked at instead of managed.