No, that's the uncharitable, strawman version, that goes for pedanticness over understanding what it means.
It's more like a crooner saying they're being put out of a job after rock n' roll or the Beatlemania, while still having gigs...
Yes, they might still get work and sell some records, but they have a harder time justifying their career, get smaller audiences, and people see them not that culturally or socially relevant anymore...
Standup comedian is a freelance job. It's perfectly possible to be unable to perform and still be a comedian, whether due to lack of material or lack of opportunity.
It's still possible to perform while being less able to get gigs, less able to come up with good jokes, less able to make those jokes relevant, increasingly feeling the jokes are superfluous as everything seems to get at satire-level status by itself, etc - in other words while "not being able to perform" and being slowly put out of a job.
It's more like a crooner saying they're being put out of a job after rock n' roll or the Beatlemania, while still having gigs...
Yes, they might still get work and sell some records, but they have a harder time justifying their career, get smaller audiences, and people see them not that culturally or socially relevant anymore...