Is dispo-only actually a business, or a job inside someone else's business?

I want the boring thing that works, so I've been reading about this model and I keep hitting the same doubt.

A dispo-only operator doesn't find the property, doesn't contract the seller, doesn't take title, doesn't put up money. They hold a list of cash buyers and they get paid a share of somebody else's fee for making a match. The pitch is that disposition is a real specialty and the buyer network is the asset, which I believe. Wholesalers who can find deals and can't sell them are apparently common.

What I can't decide is whether that's a business you own or a function you perform for people who can fire you. The list is yours until your two best buyers start taking calls directly from the wholesalers who sourced the deals, and both sides have an obvious incentive to cut out the middle once they've met each other. A marketplace platform seems different because the aggregation is structural, but a person with a spreadsheet and a phone might just be a well paid contractor.

If somebody has run this for years and kept the buyers loyal, I'd like to hear how.