It's different, because it takes advantage of the nonlinear value of time. It's specifically designed not to preclude other employment, hence the Saturdays. A

It's different, because it takes advantage of the nonlinear value of time. It's specifically designed not to preclude other employment, hence the Saturdays. A highly competent person's marginal value per hour starts very high, then drops around the 100-hour per year mark, then goes up slightly again from 500 to 2200 hours. Most people are paid based on the bottom of that U-shaped curve. For example, pretty much any company would benefit from hiring someone like me at $1000/hour for a few hours at a time, because I'm very good at spotting problems and coming up with plausible solutions... but very few companies could justify a full-time retainer at that hourly rate. So that's the economic theory behind it. I feel like career modularity is going to be more important in the 21st century anyway. The evil of the current arrangement isn't working for other people or "being employed"; it's the lack of diversification and the fact that people are coerced into a one-size-fits-all model that has ceased to add value, especially at the upper end.