While the world of employment is already heavily distributed, individuals risk becoming intermediated by larger middlemen. With the reduction in full-time employment opportunities as a whole, and the frequency of layoffs of those fortunate to find employment, there has been a concomitant rise in freelancing and consulting. Wherever (small) individual, un-integrated businesses exist, large companies come in to homogenize and "franchise" the market. Companies like UpWork (formerly eLance and oDesk) are middlemen who provide "employment" to the individual, while reselling skills to the enterprise.
The challenge for the talented individual or "small shop" is to clearly show their expertise and uniqueness of service.
Small shops can potentially use these middlemen to adantage.
Companies like http://www.growthgeeks.com/ will do specific tasks / roles for your organization for a set fee; in this case digital marketing. If you're not ready for a full-time marketing person, or marketing department; or if you need additional resources for a specific marketing campaign, you don't just outsource anymore. You outsource to a specific "specialist" outfit that has expertise in the functional area you need (Marketing, Office clerical, Administrative, Accounting, Legal, Sales).