This paper discusses how the technical evolution of the translation market forces translators to translate literally. Literal translations are seen as an industrial need, closely attached to production goals. CAT tools constrain the translator's freedom because they are developed with the underlying idea of one-to-one linguistic equivalence and the NANS concept. Nowadays texts are more iconic than ever, but industrial workflows expect translators to operate only on natural-language strings, therefore limiting their freedom and their ability to work with a text. Cutting-edge technology and industrial workflows reduce the translator’s power to determine their own answer to the question of literal vs. free translation.