It's as significant a change as when the country shifted from a nation of farmers to a nation of factory workers. This will not just apply to technology experts. A free agent is someone who works on a project basis. They move from assignment to assignment and company to company. What they have in common is the desire for flexibility and variety and a belief that improving your skills and expanding your work experiences is the best way to build job security.
Free agents design their work around their lives, rather than their lives around their work.
You can grow with each experience and then move into better positions. You can even select your next project based on your own area of interest. In technology, everything changes within half a year to a year. You need to make yourself flexible to the change and able to adapt. Being a free agent gives me the ability to familiarize myself with other technologies and stay on top of the trends.