The app is real. The coma cubes are real. It’s all, on basis, true, but it’s far from ubiquitous.
Like you said, they tend to be limited to the not-yet-fully-gentrified areas of the city that the upper class never visits so they don’t see it.
It’s like living in Chicago and saying there aren’t really dozens of murders every weekend. There are, but just tidily kept to the “bad” parts of town and impacting faceless people so the rest don’t really feel connected to it.