This. But to take it further, you better be ready to hustle your ass off. Because you need to bring money in which means meeting new clients 24/7/365.
Good luck. It’s an impossible amount of work to do alone so hopefully you have a good network.
The "trick" is being socially skilled and interested in others, to get them to trust you with jobs that are large enough so you don't have to be constant lookout for new assignments. (I do not mean to imply that you lack social skills). I have a small client pond (50-75 contacts on first name basis) where I'm becoming the big dev fish and people have started sending referrals my way nowadays.
Your point about going it alone is valid - I chose to partner up because of the crazy amounts of context switching solo operations require.