Lots of people keep their jobs because the employer can't afford to lose them. That goes for freelancers too. I have freelanced long enough to know that a lot of people in my industry lack basic competence, or don't care about their customers over the long term. I have customers now worried about what they will do when I retire in a few years. That's not because I have so many special talents but because the smaller companies I work for find it very hard to find good people, and they don't have the expertise to judge whether someone actually knows what they are talking about or not.