actors must act with other actors- sort of like... a team?
the must be... directed, sort of like a manager?
Do actors have to know and understand the other actors they're working with in the same way? I'm guessing not seeing how rarely you see a gang of actors that sticks together through several movies.
Jud Apatow is known for working with Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill, Quentin Tarantino is known for working with Uma Thurman and Michael Madsen, Martin Scorcese is known for working with Robert DeNiro and Leonardo DiCaprio, Tim Burton is known for working with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter...
The list goes on and on. Software is special, but it isn't that special.
Rat Pack
Brat Pack
Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan
...
Yea, this points to the commoditization thing again. You wouldn't see "Film Consultancies" renting out entire production teams; actors, director and all. At least not for the high profile films.
If you're a talented developer, but with no marketing or other such skills, you join a company. For the sake of argument, let's call it a Software Consultancy. Then the consultancy finds you Gigs (i.e. takes on projects and puts you on them), and you get money.
Companies, in fact, solve another problem that acting doesn't have - namely, actors are hired alone. Software, on the other hand, is much, much more likely to be built by a team. And having a team brings you all sorts of other difficulties that customers can't deal with:
* You need a team that works well together
* You need proper management of the team
* You need proper processes in place for building the software
* In some cases, even access to equipment is an issue
In short, an agent that can represent a single developer is not the right "level of abstraction" for most clients.