There is no need for suspecting "...that as years go by the salaries will go lower as the gig-economy becomes standard." There is empirical evidence today anywhere you care to analyze freelancing results. I'm loathe to admit this as I used to think the "free agent economy" was the way to go, but I have to face the cumulative evidence over the past several decades.
Mainstreaming the freelance economy will be disastrous for median incomes, and further concentrate power because the majority of freelancers have little to no leverage. That is because by definition, the majority of freelancers fall somewhere close to some average metric (whatever objective/subjective measure is chosen by the buyer). That average is commoditized through many different means (the primary channel of delivering that commoditization being the purchasing/procurement department), and then the individual members of the average are pitted against each other. Everyone wants to think they are the special snowflake that will beat the averages, but by definition only a top 10-40% (depending upon a variety of factors) can beat the numbers.
My personal rule of thumb to staying a free agent for over the past ten years is assiduously put in the deliberate practice for 10K+ hours on a running 5-year basis constantly learning and applying new fields/skills/concepts, and successfully sell that (the key part many fall down upon). This is alongside the work you do to put bread on the table. My other rule of thumb is the moment you are negotiating a proposed gig's technical deliverables through the purchasing/procurement bureaucracy instead of the business unit that will realize the benefits of the gig, you are losing large chunks of your agency to their buying process that acts as a highly lossy compression algorithm, if you haven't lost it all already by that point.
Mainstreaming the freelance economy will be disastrous for median incomes, and further concentrate power because the majority of freelancers have little to no leverage. That is because by definition, the majority of freelancers fall somewhere close to some average metric (whatever objective/subjective measure is chosen by the buyer). That average is commoditized through many different means (the primary channel of delivering that commoditization being the purchasing/procurement department), and then the individual members of the average are pitted against each other. Everyone wants to think they are the special snowflake that will beat the averages, but by definition only a top 10-40% (depending upon a variety of factors) can beat the numbers.
My personal rule of thumb to staying a free agent for over the past ten years is assiduously put in the deliberate practice for 10K+ hours on a running 5-year basis constantly learning and applying new fields/skills/concepts, and successfully sell that (the key part many fall down upon). This is alongside the work you do to put bread on the table. My other rule of thumb is the moment you are negotiating a proposed gig's technical deliverables through the purchasing/procurement bureaucracy instead of the business unit that will realize the benefits of the gig, you are losing large chunks of your agency to their buying process that acts as a highly lossy compression algorithm, if you haven't lost it all already by that point.