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By:

Rupak Bardhan Roy

17 March 2026 at 8:04:57 pm

The Market of Fear

Alfred Hitchcock made fear a sophisticated form of entertainment. Above, James Stewart in Rear Window (1954) and Cary Grant in North by Northwest (1959). Let us begin where discussions of this kind usually begin, the market. Leaving thriller novels and short stories aside, market analyses of audiovisual thrillers suggest that the global OTT and theatrical market was projected to reach $10 billion by 2026. Although the United States remains its largest consumer, the vast Asia-Pacific...

The Market of Fear

Alfred Hitchcock made fear a sophisticated form of entertainment. Above, James Stewart in Rear Window (1954) and Cary Grant in North by Northwest (1959). Let us begin where discussions of this kind usually begin, the market. Leaving thriller novels and short stories aside, market analyses of audiovisual thrillers suggest that the global OTT and theatrical market was projected to reach $10 billion by 2026. Although the United States remains its largest consumer, the vast Asia-Pacific region—including China and the Indian subcontinent—is not far behind in terms of compounded annual growth. India’s audiovisual thriller market has reportedly been expanding by more than 9 per cent annually, with an audience of nearly 60 million viewers a year. The reasons for this rapid growth are not difficult to comprehend: provocative subject matter, polished presentation and, as an additional post-pandemic stimulus, the increasingly common habit of spending substantial portions of the day at home. But is this at all a problem? If I choose to spend my days and nights watching thrillers in a free country, whose concern is it anyway? What I am trying to convey is: there are humanist and psychological burdens of too much thriller consumption. To make this thesis of mine more accessible let's start with the psychology upon which this enormous market has been built. The Market Psyche Nearly eight decades ago, the relationship between the consumer’s fascination with thrillers and the industry built around it was mapped with remarkable precision by none other than the maestro of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock himself. It’s that obvious right? Who better than Hitchcock - one of the principal architects of the modern thriller market and the director of such celebrated classics as Shadow of a Doubt, Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, The Birds among other gems - to have understood its psychological machinery better? According to Hitchcock, when we watch a crime or psychological thriller, we observe an intensely personal horror from an impersonal distance. We temporarily project ourselves into the consciousness of the terrified victim or the frightening situation. Yet, beneath that identification, we remain aware of our own security. In his own words: “In our subconscious, we are aware that we are safe, sitting in a comfortable armchair, watching a screen.” The master also identified an indispensable method for manufacturing suspense: “Suspense can be created by allowing the audience to play God.” The audience may know who the murderer is, while the characters do not. Suspense then emerges from a different question: will the characters discover what the audience already knows, or will they be mutilated before the narrative culminates? The spectator can therefore sit safely with a bucket of popcorn and think, “Poor creature—dead before realizing what was happening.” The audience possesses privileged knowledge and is allowed to observe the characters from an almost divine vantage point. The market recognizes this latent God complex, stimulates it and converts the spectator’s detached, sometimes disturbing pleasure into a saleable experience. In his essay The Enjoyment of Fear, Hitchcock offered another formulation combining identification with safety: “They identify themselves with fictitious characters who are experiencing fear … but … the price need not be paid … is the important factor.” To explain this, he referred to an analogy with roller coasters. For a few moments, the rider’s body, mind and senses might be thoroughly unsettled. Subconsciously, however, the consumer knows that an invisible structure of protection remains in place and that their life is not genuinely in danger. Do you see Hitchcock playing Frankenstein and we, his psychological creatures? The thriller market therefore rests upon two fundamental psychological conditions: An impersonal, almost God-like sympathy for characters in danger, a detached indulgence in their fear and psychological disturbance. Secondly, the temporary projection of oneself into uncertainty, accompanied by the subconscious assurance that one remains completely safe. A Cleveland Clinic discussion of media consumption and psychology suggests that women consume thriller content more frequently than men. Many women reportedly say that such content makes them more conscious of the dangers they may encounter within contemporary patriarchal societies and consequently encourages greater caution. Nor does the research claim that prolonged exposure to thrillers necessarily makes a person criminally inclined. The more credible concern is that the thriller market may reinforce existing prejudices and intensify social insecurity. In the United States, popular thriller narratives involving Black characters have often perpetuated racist stereotypes associating Black communities with criminality, addiction or sexual misconduct. In many Asia-Pacific societies, excessive consumption of thrillers may similarly contribute to an atmosphere of suspicion, insecurity and distrust. The possible consequences include greater instability in personal relationships and a broader culture of social intolerance. In a country like ours where intolerance has already become a serious feature of civic life, the concern is that thriller mania may add further fuel to it. The problem, therefore, is not the existence of thrillers or the experience of fear as entertainment. It is the transformation of that experience into habitual consumption. An endlessly expanding market repeatedly invites us to encounter other people’s fear, pain and vulnerability without paying any corresponding emotional or material price. From the security of our armchairs—the invisible shelter described by Hitchcock—we consume dramatized versions of other people’s struggles, anxieties and everyday suffering. Their danger becomes spectacle; their vulnerability content; and our psychological distance from their reality becomes the commodity being sold. This does not mean that watching thrillers automatically turns either you or me into criminals or morally corrupt individuals. The more relevant question concerns psychological well-being and social responsibility: how much is too much? (The writer is a Lead Process Engineer with GE HealthCare in France and a columnist with four books to his credit. Views personal.)

UPI Stays Free — But the Rules Behind It Are Shifting

Writer: Sachin Udgirkar
Sachin Udgirkar
Aug 24
3 min read

The real question is whether the cost stays confined to the merchant side or finds its way into prices.

For a decade, UPI has run on one promise: instant, free and frictionless. That promise is now being tested. Parliament has cleared the legal path for a Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) on UPI transactions. Untangling what this actually means matters more than the headlines around it.


The Taxation and Other Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026, passed by both Houses this month, amends Section 10A of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007. It is, by the government's own description, an enabling provision — it does not impose any charge itself.


It creates a mechanism through which the NPCI-headed UPI and Services Steering Committee can later decide whether an MDR should apply and to what. No such decision has been finalised.


Consumers, including all peer-to-peer transfers and the vast majority of merchant payments, remain untouched. Any future MDR is expected to target a narrow band: merchants above roughly Rs 1-1.5 crore annual turnover, on transactions above Rs 2,000, at 0.05-0.07 per cent — a fraction of the 1.8 per cent long charged on card payments.


The framework is structured to leave close to 90 per cent of UPI-accepting merchants, mostly small and micro-businesses, outside it entirely.


Industry Push

The economics behind the push are straightforward. UPI processed 2,366 crore transactions worth nearly Rs 30 lakh crore in July alone and now accounts for 60-65 per cent of the volume flowing through payment aggregators.


Under zero MDR, all of that volume generates no direct transaction revenue. This turns what should be a revenue line into a cost centre for the companies actually running the rail.


Government incentive schemes meant to offset this haven't kept pace. The RuPay/BHIM incentive outlay fell from Rs 3,631 crore in FY24 to Rs 437 crore in FY26 before being revised up after industry pushback.


Meanwhile, transaction volumes jumped from 17,220 crore in 2024 to 22,830 crore in 2025. Industry estimates put the annual cost of processing merchant transactions alone at Rs 4,000-5,000 crore.


That cost is currently absorbed by banks and aggregators, with no mechanism to recover it. The Payments Council of India has backed the change on these grounds, arguing that sustained investment in infrastructure, cybersecurity and fraud prevention needs a funding mechanism to survive at this scale.


The Key Question

This is where the debate sharpens. The RBI Governor observed, just before the bill passed, that consumers ultimately bear such costs "in some way or another". This would not be a visible fee but through pricing that businesses adjust over time.


That's a structurally different claim from "consumers won't be charged". Both can be true at once: no one sees a UPI fee on their app, while merchants who pay MDR gradually build it into prices, as most costs eventually are.


A Local Circles survey of over 45,000 respondents across 322 districts found that 53 per cent would consider moving away from UPI for transactions above Rs 3,000 if MDR applied to large merchants.


Of these, 27 per cent would move towards credit cards, 14 per cent towards debit cards, and 12 per cent towards cash or bank transfers.


That doesn't mean half of India's UPI users are about to switch. It does mean payment behaviour often responds to the perception of a cost, not its actual, often negligible size.


That is why regulators may need to be explicit about keeping any future MDR invisible at the point of sale, rather than allowing it to surface as a checkout surcharge.


Who Gains

Enterprise-focused payment aggregators and banks stand to benefit most directly, finally earning revenue on volume they currently process for free. Smaller technology-led players may also find it easier to compete in a market no longer weighted towards zero-revenue transactions.


Notably, the big consumer apps PhonePe, Google Pay and Paytm aren't expected to be primary beneficiaries, since they already monetise elsewhere in their business. Any MDR revenue would likely flow to banks and aggregators rather than reshape how these apps make money.


For Users

Nothing changes today. Peer-to-peer transfers and the overwhelming majority of merchant payments stay free, and that isn't in dispute.


What exists now is only the legal door for a narrowly scoped fee to be introduced later on a specific slice of larger merchant transactions. That decision sits with NPCI's committee, not this bill.


The more useful thing to watch isn't whether UPI is "ending" as a free system. Every clarification so far says it isn't.


The question is whether, once a fee is eventually finalised, its cost stays confined to the merchant side. Or does it find its way, gradually and indirectly, into the price of the things UPI is used to pay for?

 

(The writer is an IT professional based in Thane. Views personal.)

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