[ghaff]

Freelancing in the sense of filing a 1099-MISC has a very low threshold. In addition to the "gig economy," there are royalties, rent collection as landlords, selling on eBay/Amazon, other online businesses, etc. It is pretty common for even professionals these days to have some side business that triggers the very low threshold to be officially "freelancing." As I said in another comment, I suspect I've "freelanced" far more than I haven't in the course of my career even though I've never had a serious side income and I suspect that's pretty common even for people who aren't Turking or driving for Uber.