Uber's heatmap is about UBER, not YOU.

By chance a recent fare took me out to the boonies. I figured I'd be dead-heading back since there was absolutely no activity showing on the Uber map. Pure white. Instead, during the 20 minutes I spent charging, Uber served well up over 20 rides, including some quite lucrative ones. Few other drivers around, apparently. An eye opener to say the least. Where I normally drive I can be sitting in the middle of 40 square miles of solid "$$$$" paint, and sometimes Uber won't sound a peep for an hour. So my take is the heatmap is not about YOUR potential earnings. It's a map of how much money UBER is making. You might get some, or you might sit on your hands while you're earnings-throttled.