Once we get to the point where most people have several jobs with separate contracts, interviews become superfluous because you can just hire someone for a few hours at a time and then fire them. The only reason that doesn't work today is we're still clinging to the idea that you only work for one entity at a time. Never mind that most people already manage at least a couple bosses within the same company.
I've done a bunch of consulting and contract work, and that can be fine. But it's expensive, because to be continually finding new work, you must continuously invest in marketing, and every time you do something new there's a lot of switching cost. A company also needs a lot more supervisory capacity to be monitoring people who come and go, so it's not cheap for companies, either.
It's also limited. I can be much more productive when I do one thing full time than a bunch of things part time. Depth takes time, as does keeping up with changes. You just can't get as far with fractional attention as with serious focus.
And uncertainty is also uncomfortable. Many people just want to settle into a solid, reliable situation and do the work. They want to be able to plan their future with some confidence. Even if they can make more money juggling a variety of things, they'd rather make less and have less chaos.
So I don't think we'll ever get to the point you suggest.
I too quit my freelancing for a stable remote job but looking at it 18 months later I found out that I sucked a lot in managing my freelancing gigs.
So IMO with some good contract and budget management -- and confidence, and actually having a choice -- you can reap most the benefits of freelancing and almost none of the drawbacks, if you can take the thought of switching customers every 3-6 months.
I understand not everybody can pull this off -- I am not sure I am yet ready to do this that well. But I've seen people doing it very successfully and almost stress-free.
You just need an agent. Agents have not been "eaten by software" yet so they have no way to take clients making less that 6 figures of revenue. When that software comes the long tail of contractors will get access to agent services and we'll go from 80/20 salary/contractor to 20/80.
