'uber' (noun)  

of the best, highest or most extreme kind.

Oxford Dictionary

This short book will be long on wonder, whimsy and industrial rage.

Wonder, because I can’t help but marvel at the wonder-fullness of Sydney as I drive around her – her sexy, street-smart, mouthy self. The way she turns to water at the end of surprise streets. Sudden 5pm downpours that leave folks running for Ubers or resigning themselves to cling-wrapped clothes on the end-of-day commute. Bondi’s endless, otherworldly beauty parade. Tim Freedman once sang, ‘you gotta love this city for its body and not its brains’. He was doing journalism. The satisfying sensations go on and on in Sydney. You’ll hear more of them in chapters to come. In Sydney, it’s not hard to get lost in wonder while you are finding your way.

Whimsy, because the people I meet in a rideshare restore some faith in humanity. Though they can be pretty awful when overheard on their phones, by the end of a twenty-minute ride it is not uncommon to see some people crack open and a little light shine through. Uber’s clientele skews largely north, east, and rich, rich. Coming myself from the not-east and living hand-to-mouth should make me envious and jaded while I drive people to all today’s parties, but it has not. People are quite likable in twenty-minute servings, and a good conversation is a restorative act.
We are flimsy, fragmentary, fluttery creatures. People want to feel light, and long for serendipity and whimsy. It may come as a surprise that in a city whose people can seem hard as flint, it is still not hard to arrive home with more compassion than when I left.

Industrial rage, because all cute ‘w’ rhymes end here. The poetry dries up and red mist rises around my temples. This book hopes to help you love your city but wise you up about its ubiquitous transport service provider. It aims to put you in the front seat of the Uber experience. At least, to share my front-seat experience.

All the questions you have wondered about need answering. Questions like:

·      How did Uber become all-conquering?

·      What do drivers really earn?

·      Is everything in Uber squeaky clean when you look under the hood?

·      What are the risks for drivers?

·      Why do drivers get boost and surge bonuses and are they fair?

·      Who looks after Uber drivers?

·      Who is actually behind Uber?

I’ve got answers to all these questions, and if the dictionary definition of Uber is ‘the best, the highest, or most extreme’, I think you’ll discover from my answers that the best definition for Uber the company is ‘the richest, most ruthless, and most definitely extreme’.

As you read on, I think you will begin to see another case of how deeply hyper-capitalism makes ‘normal’ the practices that just keep enriching the already really, really rich, and make the lives of people who used to ‘get ahead by hard work’ uber hard.

In case you are wondering ‘is there really anything to see under the hood of Uber?’, let me give you a teaser to begin with, a riddle that gets to the heart of the whole puzzling shebang.

Here it is:

If the answer is 31 billion, what is the question?

Yes, I said 31 billion.

Now, what is the question?

(I am currently searching for a publisher for Under Uber)