Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
A silent cultural revolution is reshaping how we will work for generations to come--and it's being led by Uber. The Silicon Valley start up has become a juggernaut of the sharing economy, promising drivers the opportunity to be entrepreneurs, but managing them with algorithms and treating them like consumers. The billion-dollar, global behemoth upended our expectations about what it means to work in a society mediated by technology.
Technology ethnographer Alex Rosenblat shares her award-winning research on how algorithmic managers shape how drivers behave on the job. With the help of this technology, Uber claims to operate in a world of consumption rather than labor, skirting a series of obligations and laws, experimenting with working conditions, and misleading the public about driver earnings. By using algorithms and rhetoric to blur the line between workers and consumer, Uber exemplifies the ways in which technology can rewrite rules of law and society.
Based on Rosenblat's first hand experience of riding 5,000 miles with Uber drivers, daily visits to online forums from 2014-2018, and face-to-face discussions with Uber senior employees, Uberland goes beyond what we already know from the headlines. With a critical eye towards unveiling the truth, Rosenblat illustrates how our future will be affected by the complex nature between algorithms and workers. Be it family life or childcare arrangements, worker conditions or management practices, commuting patterns or urban planning, or racial equality campaigns and labor rights initiatives, Uberland provides a rare window into the profound social and cultural shifts taking place today.
Synopsis
Silicon Valley technology is transforming the way we work, and Uber is leading the charge. An American startup that promised to deliver entrepreneurship for the masses through its technology, Uber instead built a new template for employment using algorithms and internet platforms. Upending our understanding of work in the digital age, Uberland paints a future where any of us might be managed by a faceless boss.
The neutral language of technology masks the powerful influence algorithms have across the New Economy. Uberland chronicles the stories of drivers in more than twenty-five cities in the United States and Canada over four years, shedding light on their working conditions and providing a window into how they feel behind the wheel. Uberland also explores the company's outsized influence around the world: the billion-dollar company is now influencing everything from debates about sexual harassment and transportation regulations to racial equality campaigns and labor rights initiatives.
Based on award-winning technology ethnographer Alex Rosenblat's firsthand experience of riding over 5,000 miles with Uber drivers, daily visits to online forums, and face-to-face discussions with senior Uber employees, Uberland goes beyond the headlines to reveal the complicated politics of popular technologies that are manipulating both workers and consumers.