It may come across as patronizing because that's roughly how I see this. I'm at the end of my career after a very productive stint and have absolutely nothing to lose by letting you have the benefit of my experience to date, which spans a couple of continents, six countries and a substantial amount of money. Whether you are open to that kind of experience backed input is entirely up to you, I have no upside here, but you do and you also have a possible downside. But: when I was 27 or so I might have still seen things your way so maybe in 30 years you'll be telling someone else the same things. I sincerely hope that you will never find the true measure of how important those things are and if I could give my younger self some advice that would be it.

As for legal recognition: the only reason this is a thing right now is because the social contract is broken, in any other setting you'd be an employee.