Last week, on Oct. 3, online freelance marketplace Upwork went public in a hugely successful IPO, with shares soaring 50% on the very first day of trading.

Opening at $23 per share, UPWK smashed its initial $15 per share price—a mark that itself beat the projected pre-IPO $12-to-$14 price range for the stock.

Altogether, Upwork scored $187M in the raise at a $2.15B market cap.”The goal here was not to raise a lot of money,” CEO Stephane Kasriel said. “It was to get out there and show ourselves as the largest global online marketplace for freelancers.”

So what is Upwork?

Upwork was formed in 2014 as a merger of Elance and oDesk, two early rivals in the online freelance marketplace market. Upwork lets anyone post a job for freelancers to bid on—and in turn lets you apply to jobs, as well.

Upwork then makes its money by charging service fees to freelancers and employers that find—or grant—work on its platform.

And per the company, they’ve been doing just that. Over the past year, 375k people in 180 countries worked on the site, pocketing over $1.5 billion, Senior VP of marketing Richard Pearson told Forbes.

Their CEO says the mission is to “help companies find developers, designers, lawyers, accountants on a freelance basis throughout the country and globally.”

Two words for ya: “Gig. Economy.”

Freelancing. Side hustles. Gigs. Contracting. All of these make of what’s become known as the “gig economy.”

Since Uber, Lyft, Fiverr, and, of course, Upwork came along, an overwhelmingly large number have ditched the standard 9-5 for more freedom to join said “gig economy.”

And gigs basically mean…well, anything, really. From voiceover guys mimicking politicians to freelancers managing your Tinder profile for you.

And it’s a huge segment. (Which might explain Upwork’s mammoth IPO. We’ll get to that in a sec.)

According to the Harvard Business Review, around 150M workers in North America and Western Europe have joined this wave to work as independent contractors.

“It’s a trend that really appeals to the way young people want to work, with freedom and control over when they work” Brhmie Balaram, senior researcher at the Royal Society of the Arts, says. “But there’s some concern whether gig economy workers are being exploited.”

And that’s exactly the criticism that’s been directed at the gig economy, calling it “exploitation of Millennials.”

Exploitation…or nah?

Fiverr is another marketplace popular among bootstrapping startups and gig economy workers.

Fiverr launched back in 2010, built on the premise that every “gig” should cost five dollars (a “fiver”…get it?), whether it was service, labor or random acts. T-shirt online. Fiverr spokesperson Sam Katzen described it as “a global community that enables anyone to be a doer.”

And speaking of doers. If you’re a New Yorker, you’ve probably seen Fiverr’ “In Doers We Trust” ads emblazoned throughout the Subway transportation system.

These very same ads drew a surprising, yet predictable mix of criticism, Tweets, ridicule and outrage. One publication called it “Late Capitalism’s Best Troll.”

“The ‘gig economy’ is literally killing us,” one Twitter user added. “Most depressing ad of the day goes to Fiverr.”

On their end, Fiverr did decide to address the criticisms.

“Our campaign is all about celebrating the entrepreneurial spirit, taking action and doing what you want to do with your life,” spokesperson Chris Lane said. “The campaign was born out of a large amount of research we did about who our community is comprised of and what makes up the bootstrapped entrepreneurial mindset—flexibility, rapid experimentation, and doing more with less.”

And while it did start out at $5 a pop, Fiverr got rid of the $5 minimum after closing a $60M Series D funding round in 2015.

That move was done to “aggressively attract the vast majority of freelancers who still operate offline” after; essentially making them a competitor with Upwork.

(On a separate, but related note, a Series D funding round usually means an IPO isn’t far behind. Could Fiverr be next in line?)

Six-figure freelancers

Anyway, since then, freelancers have been allowed to charge more than $5. In fact, these days only 5% of the gigs offered cost $5. (Hashtag “five.” Ha.)

And it’s been working. Hustling Millennials are raking in the dough. In one example, Brooklyn, NY-based PR Alex Fasulo made $150k in six months off Fiverr, simply by offering a series of $5 gigs from the public relations job she left behind.

“The day I quit my job, I felt a funny sense of rebellious freedom that I never felt in my life because I hated that job so much,” Fasulo told CNBC Make It.

That said, the criticism still looms, surfacing mainly from Baby Boomers accustomed to a different way of work. Which is super weird because the Boomers are killin’ it as freelancers.

On Upwork’s end, CEO Kasriel says they’ve worked towards protecting US-based freelancers from being undercut by global counterparts.

“Last year, we launched a US-only website, where US freelancers are only competing against other US-based freelancers,” he says. “And that means they can have rates that are compatible with what they would expect to get in the US.”

Whatever people are making, the gig isn’t up yet; quite the contrary. Back in 2016, McKinsey & Co did an extensive study on the segment and found some interesting things—discoveries still relevant three years later.

Basically, for workers, freelancing gives them a level of freedom and flexibility they didn’t have before. For startups and smaller businesses, it’s a way to keep costly overhead expenses at an absolute minimum.

Again, the numbers in this 2016 McKinsey graph may be dated, but the trend seen in its findings highlight the trend behind the growth curve. Sorta speaks for itself.

2018 IPO craze 

The Upwork public offering is the latest in a whirlwind of high-profile tech IPOs this year.

Unsurprisingly, like a record 83% of 2018 IPOs, Upwork isn’t profitable yet. According to filings with the SEC, it lost $3.1 M against $202.5M in 2017 revenue. But those revenues are growing.

In the first six months of this year, Upwork reported revenue of $121.9M—a 28% spike from a year earlier. “This IPO event is not about raising money,” Upwork CEO Stephane Kasriel said. “We have cash in the bank.”

Like Fiverr and others, the fee structure ensures Upwork gets paid every time business is done. The standard fee is 10% for jobs worth between $500 and $10k.

For contracts worth over $10k, the fee drops to 5%— move done to encourage long-term relationships between freelancers and clients.

Either way, Upwork gets paid. Which begs the question…

…what’s up with that IPO?!

So how does this IPO affect business?

So we know Upwork’s not exploiting people. (Come on. It’s capitalism in a free world. Can I get a witness, #WealthGANG?!)

We know they don’t need cash.

We know business is booming.

Aside from showing they’re they biggest fish in the pond, what else changes post-IPO?

“Nothing changes for freelancers,” Upwork exec Pearson said in the Forbes report mentioned earlier. “They are still responding to jobs. We’ll be using the proceeds of today’s funding to really help improve the customer experience and hopefully build more awareness.”