I was initially on the "scammed or at least poorly served" side, but then someone with more experience in these things than me pointed out that the shares the t

I was initially on the "scammed or at least poorly served" side, but then someone with more experience in these things than me pointed out that the shares the traded hands in the IPO were a smaller fraction of the company. If you sell 10% of the company at at 50% discount, you've actually only given away 5% of the total value of the company, and you've gained a huge marketing win. Also, for reasons that seem irrational to me, I'm told institutional investors consider it a strong indicator things are going downhill if a stock ever trades below it's offering price.