It’s ignorance. People forget that parents, especially older ones in the post-WWII boomer generation, were taught from a young age that the free market = good no matter what.

After all, why would some random company rip my child and I off...?

I am sort of speaking from the US perspective that many people older than 40 think free markets are inherently “fair” (“aT LeAsT iT’s nOt cOmMuNiSM!!!”), but since South Korea was a sort of a problematic puppet state of the US until the 1990s a lot of those attitudes are prevalent in Korea too.

A lot of parents can’t fathom the “free market” will screw them over. They genuinely think these talent agencies will help their kid and make all of them rich.

As we’ve seen, that’s very often not the case.