This is my experience too in the Netherlands. I do sporadically hear stories of people initially being hired through a recruiter, then leaving, then coming back

This is my experience too in the Netherlands. I do sporadically hear stories of people initially being hired through a recruiter, then leaving, then coming back as a true freelancer. It's a sad state of affairs because these recruiters add very limited value. They basically try to match every freelancer with every position and leave all but the most basic filtering to the recruiting process. All while extracting a hefty percentage, often for the whole duration of the contract. Supply-demand matching could be done more effectively through a web application, but recruiters seem to be thoroughly entrenched.