What you probably did not think about was how much that transaction cost.

For years that answer for users and merchants has been simple. Nothing. But with a possible charge on certain UPI payments above ₹2,000 now being discussed, India’s favourite payment method has found itself in an interesting debate. Can UPI stay free forever?

The charge in questions is MDR or Merchant Discount Rate, a small fee merchants pay for processing digital transactions. India removed MDR on UPI in 2020 to encourage digital payments. Making UPI free gave both customers and merchants a reason to adopt it and the strategy clearly worked. UPI transaction volume grew from 2.3 billion in January 2021 to 21.7 billion in January 2026.

By June 2026, UPI had over 55 crore users while transactions worth around ₹314 lakh crore were processed in FY2025-26.

But processing all those payments is not actually free. Banks, payment apps and NPCI still spend money maintaining infrastructure preventing fraud and handling transactions. The government has helped cover these costs through incentives including ₹2,000 crore allocated for FY2026-27 for low value UPI and RuPay payments.

And this is where ₹2,000 becomes important.

Recent reports suggest that an MDR of around 0.3% could be introduced on certain merchant UPI payments of ₹2,000 and above, however the final framework has not yet been announced. Consumers are still expected to pay no direct fee.

Why not charge every transaction? Because that could hurt exactly what made UPI successful. Small and everyday payments. A ₹40 auto ride and a ₹100 grocery purchase are very different from a ₹20,000 electronics bill.

So the ₹2,000 debate is really a balancing act.

UPI’s biggest challenge is no longer getting people to use it. It is finding a way to fund the system without losing what made it so successful in the first place.

Suddenly, the lamp on it didn’t seem so unnecessary.

Twenty minutes later, you’re looking at lamps you didn’t need, cushions you weren’t planning to buy, and wondering if you even like your room anymore.

And somehow, you’re still nowhere near the exit or the lamp.

So why does IKEA make you walk through almost the entire store?

It isn’t just because the store is huge.

IKEA is designed around a showroom experience. Instead of placing products on ordinary shelves, it puts them inside living rooms, bedrooms, or kitchens. You don’t just see a desk. You see the desk in a room that suddenly looks like the one you’ve always wanted.

That changes the way you shop.

A ₹3,000 desk sitting on a shelf is just a desk.

Put that same desk inside a study setup straight out of Pinterest, next to a lamp, chair, bookshelf, and plant, and suddenly you’re not just buying a desk anymore.

You’re imagining a better room.

This is called behavioural economics: the idea that people’s decisions aren’t always perfectly rational. The environment around us can influence what we choose to buy.

And IKEA’s layout uses this idea to get you to buy something you didn’t really need an hour ago.

The showroom comes first. Then comes the Market Hall, where customers can find smaller products such as lighting, rugs, organisers, kitchen accessories and decorations. Finally, you reach the self-serve furniture section, where you collect the flat-packed furniture you actually came for.

By the time you’ve reached the furniture section, you’ve already seen hundreds of other products. And that’s exactly what IKEA wanted.

IKEA isn’t necessarily trying to force you to buy something. It’s making sure you see it first.

This is called impulse buying. You may enter with a specific product in mind, but seeing something repeatedly and seeing it in a setting where it looks useful can make an unplanned purchase feel much more reasonable.

“I don’t need this.” turns to “Actually, this could look good in my room.”

IKEA even provides shortcuts in some stores, so customers who know exactly what they want can avoid the full route. But the main layout is built around moving customers through different parts of the store and exposing them to different solutions along the way.

The next time you walk into IKEA for one thing, ask yourself: did you choose everything in your cart, or did the store help you choose?

It seems harmless enough. But behind that fire emoji and the growing streak count is a clever bit of psychology: how do you get people to come back, every single day, without fail?

Here’s how it works. Two people snap each other on consecutive days, and a streak starts. Miss a day, and it’s gone. Simple as that. But what’s interesting is that Snapchat isn’t just handing you a fun little feature to play with, it’s giving you a reason you can’t resist opening the app.

This is where behavioural economics comes in. Classic economics likes to assume we’re all rational, weighing costs and benefits like little calculators. Anyone who’s ever kept a 400-day streak alive by sending a photo of their carpet at 11:58 pm knows that’s not quite how it goes. We get attached to routines. We hate losing things we already have. And sometimes we keep doing something simply because we’ve already been doing it for so long.

Streaks lean on all three of these, actually.

Take loss aversion: the idea that losing something hurts more than gaining the same thing feels good. Once you’ve kept a streak going for 20 days, 50, or 500, letting it die feels awful, way more than it should. You might not care at all about the snap itself. But the thought of watching that number disappear? That’s often enough to make you open the app even when you don’t want to.

Then there’s habit formation. Do something enough times and it stops being a decision, it just becomes what you do. Notification pops up, you open the app, send a snap, move on with your day. Do that for a few months and it barely registers as a choice anymore. It’s just muscle memory.

And there’s a sense of commitment built in too. That growing number is proof of time and effort you’ve already put in. The longer it goes, the harder it feels to just let it go, which is basically the sunk cost in action. Economists will tell you that money or effort already spent shouldn’t affect what you do next. Try telling that to someone with a 600-day streak.

So, what’s in it for Snapchat?

One word: retention. Getting someone to download the app is the easy part. Getting them to keep coming back, that’s the real game. And every time you open Snapchat, you’re handing over something valuable, whether you think about it that way or not: your attention.

And attention, these days, is basically currency.

The more often people open the app, the more chances Snapchat gets to show ads, push new features, and keep you inside its world instead of someone else’s. That’s the attention economy in a nutshell, companies aren’t just competing for your wallet anymore, they’re competing for your time.

So, a Snapchat streak isn’t really just about two friends keeping something going. It’s a small, everyday example of something much bigger: how businesses can take ordinary human behaviour and turn it into an edge.

The next time you send a snap just to keep a streak alive, remember: you might think you are maintaining a friendship tradition, but somewhere behind that little fire emoji, an entire business model is working too.

For some of Rolex’s most sought-after models, having the money is only half the story. You might be ready to pay thousands of dollars and still be told to wait, while someone else can walk into the grey market and buy the same watch immediately for a lot more.

The watch itself hasn’t suddenly become more expensive to produce. So why are people willing to pay thousands extra? Because waiting has a cost too. For some buyers, paying more is simply the price of avoiding the wait.

So, why doesn’t Rolex just increase its prices?

Rolex doesn’t just sell watches. It sells a status symbol that the watch is difficult to get. If anyone could walk into the store and buy one, it wouldn’t feel exclusive.

Getting one in retail means going through authorised dealers who have more customers than watches. In this case allocation depends on things like their relationship with the dealer or what they’ve bought before.

If you cannot buy it from the dealers, the grey market comes in. The only thing is, you would have to pay a lot more for the luxury of getting it without the wait.

This is the economics of scarcity in action. The Rolex Daytona’s retail price is around ₹15,61,500, while its estimated secondary-market value is approximately ₹30,83,028. That is a gap of ₹15,21,528, meaning the grey-market buyer pays 97% more than retail.

The Rolex GMT-Master II “Pepsi” tells a similar story. At around ₹10,74,700 at retail and approximately ₹ 21,07,374 on the secondary market, the difference is, ₹10,32,674 or about an 96% premium.

That is what makes the luxury watch market so different. Scarcity isn’t just something getting in the way of a sale; it’s part of what makes the watch desirable in the first place. You’re paying for the craftsmanship and reputation, of course, but also for the feeling of owning something that not everyone can simply walk in and buy.

When money can’t get you the watch, you end up paying for the chance to get it.

Airlines have started earning money, even when customers are not flying. Through what?

Airline loyalty programmes.

But, how did a program meant to reward passengers, become a billion dollar business?

Originally these frequent flyer programmes started with a simple model. Fly more with a specific airline, earn miles, get rewarded. The objective was simple, keep customers in a highly competitive industry.

Airlines soon realised that miles could be earned outside the plane too.

They partnered with credit card companies, hotels, banks and retailers. Instead of giving away miles, they started selling them to their partners, turning loyalty programmed into much more than frequent flying.

A bank buys miles from the airline, then offers them as rewards to encourage customers to spend more on its credit card. The customer gets the miles, the airline gets paid by the bank. This turns loyalty into a multi market, connecting airlines, customers and companies.

The scale of this business is huge. Delta made around $8.2 billion from its loyalty programme in 2025, almost $800 million more than the previous year. Much of that came from its partnership with American Express, which paid Delta billions to offer its miles as credit-card rewards. So, airlines can now generate billions in loyalty without selling billions of additional tickets.

This value became clear during COVID-19, when airlines turned to their loyalty programs to raise billions in loans as passenger revenue collapsed.

Banks are buying these miles because such rewards on their cards make them look more attractive. These miles encourage customers to spend only through one card. Airlines monetise the miles, and banks monetise the spending.

Loyalty programs are also very profitable, because the cost of providing miles is often less than the price that banks are happy to pay for them. This gives airlines high margins and banks the opportunity to drive customer spending through rewards.

Once customers start gaining miles and reach the elite status, airlines become more expensive. Even if other airlines have cheaper tickets, customers may stay to maintain their status, miles and benefits. These are called switching costs, the rewards and benefits that customers would lose out on when they leave. But airlines are not just rewarding loyalty, they are building a system which makes it harder for customers to leave.

Loyalty can also sometimes mean more spending.

Elite tiers require customers to fly or spend more in order to reach to the next level. Some customers might even pay for a more expensive flight because they feel the benefits are worth it . This way the airlines can target customers based on their willingness to pay.

Not all the miles are used either. Some rewards never turn into flights, which is the “breakage” that reduces the overall cost of the program to the airline.

The loyalty programmes that started as a way to keep more customers, have today turned into major revenue earning systems for airlines.

So, the next time you earn a mile without boarding a plane, remember that the airline may have already earned it from your loyalty.

Back in 2017, something big happened in the racing world, Liberty Media bought Formula 1. And just like that, a sport built around cars going fast in circles turns into something else entirely: an entertainment brand.

There’s a term for this in economics- commercial evolution, which really just means a product outgrows what it was originally built for and finds new ways to make money. For F1, ticket sales used to carry the business. Not anymore. Now it’s media deals, sponsorships, merchandise, and those increasingly elaborate VIP experiences doing the heavy lifting.

A big piece of this puzzle is storytelling. F1 got serious about social media, YouTube, streaming, basically anywhere fans might be scrolling between race weekends. Then Drive to Survive landed on Netflix, and the whole thing shifted. Suddenly the drama in the garage mattered as much as what happened on track. People weren’t just tuning in for lap times, they were invested in Max Verstappen’s ice-cold focus or Daniel Ricciardo’s million-dollar smile. That’s fan engagement, in marketing terms, and it’s a huge reason the sport picked up so many young fans who’d never cared about racing before.

More viewers, naturally, means broadcasters start competing for the rights to air it, and that competition drives prices up fast. Live sport has this one advantage over almost everything else on TV: people actually want to watch it happen, not scroll past a recap the next day. Because of that, broadcasting rights have become one of F1’s biggest earners.

The numbers make the growth even clearer. Since Liberty Media took over, Formula 1’s business has been growing year after year. In 2022, the sport earned US$2.57 billion in revenue. That increased to US$3.22 billion in 2023 and reached a record US$3.41 billion in 2024. What’s even more interesting is where that money comes from. Around one-third of Formula 1’s revenue now comes from media rights, while almost one-fifth comes from sponsorships.

Luxury brands noticed too. Rolex, Louis Vuitton, Oracle, Qatar Airways, all lining up because F1 gives off exactly the vibe they’re selling: speed, precision, prestige. Textbook brand advertising, really, pay to be seen next to something impressive, and some of that reputation rubs off on you.

Then there’s the experience economy, the idea that people are choosing memories over things these days. A Grand Prix weekend now looks a lot like a festival, concerts, hospitality suites, whole cities rearranging themselves around the race. Fans spend on flights, hotels, restaurants, souvenirs, and that money doesn’t just disappear once it’s spent. It moves. Economists call this the multiplier effect: your spending becomes someone else’s income, and it keeps circulating through the local economy. Which is exactly why host cities see a spike in tourism, jobs, and global attention every time a race rolls into town.

None of this means F1 gets to relax, though. Football, cricket, esports, endless streaming options, they’re all competing for the same limited attention. Staying on pole position means constantly finding new ways to keep people hooked.

The real lesson here is a simple one: businesses grow when they stop selling just a product and start selling an experience. Between the marketing, the storytelling, the sponsorships, and the expansion into new markets, F1 didn’t just survive its own reinvention, it became one of the biggest success stories in modern sports business. Lights out, and away it goes.

That’s the Michelin effect.

This is due to information asymmetry: a situation in which sellers know far more about the product than their customers do. Before dining, customers cannot judge whether the food or the experience is worth the money. So to bridge that information gap, they start looking for signals, and few are as powerful as Michelin stars.

This is known as signalling. A signal is only valuable if it is difficult to imitate. Earning a Michelin star demands exceptional chefs, premium ingredients, highly trained staff, and unwavering consistency.

Unlike online reviews, Michelin stars aren’t based on popularity. They’re awarded by anonymous inspectors using consistent standards, making them one of the most trusted signals of quality in the food industry.

This trust has economic value.

Overnight, restaurants go from serving mostly local customers to welcoming diners who travel hundreds of kilometres and happily pay a premium for the experience.

With demand far exceeding the number of available tables, restaurants can charge significantly higher prices. The difference is reflected in the numbers.

Three-star Michelin restaurants average roughly €433,000 in monthly revenue, compared with €125,000 for one-star restaurants and €56,000 for comparable non-starred establishments.

But prestige comes at a price.

Keeping the star demands constant investments even as the economic payoff declines. Since 2016, the revenue premium enjoyed by three-star restaurants has fallen from 645.6% to 514.7%.

Losing a Michelin star can be just as damaging. Restaurants often struggle to justify premium pricing while the costs of exceptional ingredients, skilled staff, and impeccable service remain just as high. Many are then forced to choose between cutting costs and maintaining the quality that once earned them the star, making it even harder to win back diners.

Even so, Michelin stars continue to carry immense weight. Nearly 96% of three-star restaurants retain their status from one year to the next, making the Guide one of the most trusted markers for excellence.

In the end, Michelin stars are far more than a culinary award. They show that when quality is difficult to judge, trust and reputation become a competitive advantage. The businesses that earn it don’t just attract customers, it shapes what people are willing to pay and set the benchmark for fine dining.

You pay for food. McDonald’s earns money. End of story.

Or is it?

Every time you walk into a McDonald’s, the company isn’t just hoping you’ll buy fries. It’s hoping someone keeps paying for the building you’re standing in.

Then, is there actually someone paying rent for your local McDonald’s?

Yes, but that someone usually isn’t you.

It’s the restaurant owner.

Most people think McDonald’s became one of the world’s biggest companies by selling billions of burgers every year. The burgers certainly made the brand famous, but they weren’t what made the company so powerful. The real business started long before the first burger was served.

Here’s what’s really happening.

Around 95% of McDonald’s restaurants are owned by franchisees, independent business owners who pay to use McDonald’s name, recipes, and business system. This is called a franchise model. Instead of spending billions opening every restaurant itself, McDonald’s lets franchisees invest their own money while it focuses on something much bigger.

But why would a burger company spend billions buying land?

Long before the first burger is served, McDonald’s often buys, or signs long-term leases, prime commercial land. Busy roads. Shopping centres. Junctions where thousands of people pass every single day.

Once the restaurant is ready, McDonald’s leases the land back to the franchisee.
So while you’re deciding between fries or nuggets, the company isn’t just earning from your meal; it’s also collecting rent from the person operating that restaurant.

And because every franchisee also pays a royalty, a percentage of every sale for using the McDonald’s brand, the company earns money from two directions at once.

The more burgers the franchise sells,

McDonald’s earns even more!

Even if one restaurant has a slow week, McDonald’s still owns a valuable piece of commercial property that becomes more valuable over time.

This is called a competitive advantage, a long-term advantage that competitors struggle to copy.

Anyone can copy a burger.

It’s much harder to copy decades of owning some of the best commercial locations in the world.

Today, McDonald’s operates in more than 40,000 restaurants across over 100 countries. While other fast-food chains compete over menus, prices, and secret sauces, McDonald’s owns the ground beneath a large part of its business.

The next time someone says McDonald’s is the world’s biggest burger company, remember:

Every burger is sold once. But, burgers only get customers through the door.

The land earns McDonald’s millions throughout decades.
Its what keeps them ahead of everyone else.
That’s the business McDonald’s really mastered.

Ever ordered a regular cappuccino in Zurich and felt your wallet gasp? Same coffee, same beans, maybe even the same machine, yet the bill looks like it belongs to a five-star hotel. Turns out, the answer lies in a theory proposed independently by economists Bela Balassa and Paul Samuelson in the 1960s, today known as the Balassa-Samuelson Effect.

Here’s the core idea: every economy produces two kinds of things. Some goods can travel across borders like- machinery, software, electronics. Others simply cannot, they must be consumed where people actually are. Services that require presence are stuck in place. You can’t ship them.

When a nation excels at producing shippable goods, something interesting happens. Companies become incredibly productive and pour money into their businesses. They need talented people, so they pay high salaries. These weren’t always high wages; they became high because the work itself generates enormous value. Workers in these industries earn substantially more than average.

But here’s what happens next: in the same city, people who work in local services such as coffee shops and salons, have a problem. They need to hire workers. But those workers have choices. If someone can earn much more in a high-paying industry than in a café or salon, the choice is obvious. To attract and keep workers, cafés and salons have to raise wages too. It’s not because their work has become more productive, but because everyone is competing for the same workers.

When wages rise without productivity gain, one outcome is inevitable: prices must increase. A service that previously cost less now carries a higher cost. Nothing about the service improved. The worker didn’t get faster or better. But everyone’s earning more, so everything costs more.

“Prosperity spreads like ripples”. When high-earning sectors thrive, those workers spend their money locally. They buy services, visit restaurants, stay in hotels, use transportation. Service providers see increased demand, earn more revenue, and can afford better wages. This creates a virtuous cycle where prosperity genuinely lifts everyone.

This is also why converting prices using the dollar-rupee rate never tells the full story. Exchange rates track trade and capital flows, not the price of your evening tea. That’s exactly why economists lean on Purchasing Power Parity instead; it compares what people can actually buy, not just what the currency converter says.

So next time someone says “It’s more expensive there,” remember, it’s not magic, it’s economics. As nations grow richer and more productive, even the ordinary stuff like coffee, haircuts quietly get pricier too. Prosperity, it seems, always finds its way into the price of a cup of coffee.

It’s less a rip-off, more a report card on how far an economy has come.

It wasn’t the sports that changed. It was the cities and the lifestyle of the people living in them.

The earlier generations used to play almost everywhere, empty plots, school playgrounds, and streets. No booking, no hourly fee. Then there was rapid urbanisation and the population also grew at the same time. Open spaces started shrinking, and real estate became very expensive.

Cities didn’t become less playful, they simply became more crowded. Since the early 2000s, India’s cities have expanded rapidly, and so has the value of urban land.

But cities don’t get bigger by magic, they get denser. As more apartments, offices and shopping centres replaced vacant plots, free playgrounds quietly disappeared. Every square metre suddenly had the potential to generate income, making recreational spaces increasingly scarce.

As the value of the land rises, so does its opportunity cost. Every vacant space could now be turned into a profitable business.

The lack of playgrounds didn’t stop people from wanting to play. If anything, the demand only increased. While players faced lack of playing spaces, entrepreneurs saw a business opportunity. And thus emerged the concept of private sports turfs.

People using these turfs don’t just pay for the artificial grass. They pay for convenience: a guaranteed slot, floodlights, clean changing rooms, parking, and no arguments over whose turn it is to use the ground.

In economics, this is called the experience economy, where customers pay for a seamless experience, not just a product. Just like how people pay extra for vip seats at concerts, they now pay for a hassle-free football match.

Technology has accelerated the transition. Apps like Hudle and Playo have made booking a turf as simple as ordering food online. Users can compare prices, split payments, invite teammates and even join games with strangers. These platforms lower the search costs and make the matching of players and turf-owners easier.

There’s so much more to the business than hourly bookings. A turf can have coaching academies in the morning, office leagues in the evening and tournaments on the weekends. Add memberships, cafés, equipment rentals and sponsorships, and one patch of artificial grass becomes a money-making business all day long. A whole gig economy of freelance coaches, referees, photographers and trainers has grown around it.

In the end, sports didn’t become expensive. Space did. And an entire industry was built around that one simple change.

If there is one person who understands how to play it, it’s probably Samay Raina. He has made a career out of doing things people said wouldn’t work. Turning four hour chess streams into entertainment, making questionable talents internet sensations, and now challenging one of the streaming’s oldest rules: exclusivity.

Netflix or YouTube? Both.

“Netflix pe bhi, YouTube pe bhi. Same episode, same day, same duration. Same to same.” Samay Raina announced while revealing India’s Got Latent Season 2’s two platform release. The only difference? Netflix viewers won’t have to sit through advertisements or comment sections.

Behind the joke lies one of the smartest business decisions in India’s creator economy.

For decades, streaming has been a game of exclusivity. Netflix reportedly spends nearly $18 billion annually on content because exclusive shows don’t just entertain consumers. They acquire them. You subscribed for Stranger Things. Someone else stayed for Squid Game. Exclusivity has always been streaming’s greatest weapon.

Which is why India’s Got Latent makes absolutely no sense. Or perhaps, perfect sense.

Why would Netflix pay for something that’s available for free?More importantly, why would anyone pay to watch something they can watch for free?

Because consumers aren’t paying for content anymore. They are paying for experiences.

Let’s be honest. We are Indians. Half of us have watched Netflix from someone’s “shared family account”, while the other half patiently wait for creators to upload clips on YouTube. We love premium content; we just happen to love free content slightly more. India’s Got Latent understands both kinds of consumers.

With over 2.7 billion monthly active users worldwide, YouTube offers creators unparalleled discoverability and monetisation through advertisements, memberships and sponsorships. Meanwhile Netflix with over 325 million paid subscribers globally, offers premium monetisation and access to a loyal paying audience. One platform sells attention, the other sells convenience.

And Samay Raina? He gets both.

Uploading exclusively to Netflix could mean sacrificing millions of viewers. Staying only on YouTube could mean leaving premium revenue opportunities on the table. Why win one platform when you can monetise two?

More importantly, creators are refusing to choose too. Podcasts release simultaneously on YouTube and Spotify, while songs are available across every streaming platform imaginable. Today’s creators are not merely building channels. They are building businesses..

Ten years ago, creators needed platforms. Today , platforms need creators too. The biggest flex in 2026 isn’t getting your show on Netflix. It’s getting away with putting it on Netflix and YouTube at the same time

After all, the internet is a game. And the smartest players don’t pick one way to win.

Sometimes, they simply choose both.

For nearly 150 years the Championships have been known for pristine grass courts, strawberries and cream, the iconic Rolex clock, all-white Ralph Lauren outfits and the occasional “Quiet Please.”

Now? Its Instagram tells us a very different story. It’s filled with Punjabi songs, Bollywood audio and memes. At first glance, it looks like nothing more than clever social media marketing.

But that’s not all.

It’s also one of the smartest business decisions in global sport.

The story actually begins with cricket.

In 2024, JioHotstar reportedly spent almost US$3 billion on ICC media rights. The biggest sports media bet in India’s history. Cricket was supposed to be the safest investment imaginable. Instead, the company later booked approx. ₹12,300 crore provision on the deal, officially calling it an onerous contract. A polite corporate way of saying, “We may never recover what we paid.”

The failure changed the economics.

Instead of asking, “Which sport attracts the biggest audience?” broadcasters began asking a far more profitable question.

“Which audience attracts the biggest advertisers?”

That’s where Wimbledon serves an ace.

Broadcasting Wimbledon costs only a fraction of premium cricket rights, yet it delivers something increasingly valuable: affluent customers. Premium brands are not buying attention, they are buying purchasing power. A smaller audience with higher incomes can often generate more advertising value than millions of casual viewers.

And India is changing fast.

According to Henley & Partners, India added over 85,000 millionaires between 2014 and 2024, making it one of the fastest- growing wealth markets globally. Bain & Company estimates India’s luxury market could grow to over US$85 billion by 2030, while JioHotstar says Wimbledon’s reach in India jumped nearly 80% in just one year. Suddenly, tennis is not competing with cricket. Its competing for India’s fastest- growing premium customers.

The strategy wasn’t limited to Instagram. It was visible in the stands too. Even Centre Court reflects that shift. Alongside Jannik Sinner’s title-winning run, Indian cricket stars like Yuvraj Singh, Sanju Samson, Abhishek Sharma and Vaibhav Suryavanshi were spotted at Wimbledon, turning the tournament into a crossover moment between India’s biggest sport and one of the world’s most prestigious ones.

Then there’s Instagram. The tournament’s secret doubles partner.

Its algorithm doesn’t understand Bollywood or Punjabi music. It simply rewards attention. When an audio starts trending among Indian users, every new reel using that sound has a better chance of being recommended. Wimbledon isn’t just borrowing Indian songs because it’s suddenly obsessed with Bollywood. It’s borrowing an audience that already exists.

And perhaps that’s the biggest plot twist of all.

Wimbledon isn’t just trying to make India fall in love with tennis. It’s making sure that when India gets richer, tennis is already waiting.

Because the next billion- dollar battle in sports won’t be fought over the biggest audience.

It will be fought over the most valuable ones.

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For decades, China has been the powerhouse of manufacturing, known as the ‘World’s factory’. If you picked up your phone, shoes or toys, chances are, they were made in China.

For years, it supplied goods to every corner of the world, boosting its economy and making it the world’s 2^nd largest economy.

China’s economy grew at a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of nearly 10% between 1980 and 2012. Today, growth is below 5%, with the IMF projecting it to slow to around 3%

by 2030.

This decline is a mix of several factors hitting the economy at once, from the real estate crisis to the trade tensions with the US. The real estate sector, which was once so profitable that it accounted for 30% of the GDP during the 2010s, has now been dragging the economy down due to builders overestimating housing and population demands

China’s population is ageing, and fewer young workers are entering the labour force, leading to a decline in production ability. Trade tensions with the US were the final blow to the falling economy. Over the past few years, tariffs, export restrictions, and concerns over economic dependence have encouraged many companies to diversify their manufacturing bases beyond China.

As businesses apply the ‘China + 1’ strategy, India and Vietnam have emerged as attractive options to shift some dependence.

What’s the China + 1 strategy? ‘China + 1’ means not putting all your manufacturing eggs in the China basket. Rather than leaving China completely, businesses are diversifying production to make the global supply chain more resilient.

The question is, ‘Can India benefit from China’s losses?’

While it offers a young workforce and a large domestic market, becoming the next ‘World’s factory’ isn’t an overnight game. China’s manufacturing strength was built over decades, and India still faces the problem of limited infrastructure, high transportation costs, and labour productivity challenges while competing for investment with countries like Mexico and Vietnam.

China’s slowdown is not just China’s problem but a turning point for the global economy. As companies search for new manufacturing hubs, economic power in Asia could be reshaped.

India has been handed a golden opportunity, but the real question is whether it can successfully use its potential and overcome challenges to become a manufacturing powerhouse.

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So, if users do not pay for Instagram, how does the platform make money?’

The answer lies in advertising, supported by the unique economics of digital media platforms.

Unlike traditional media companies, Instagram doesn’t produce most of the content that attracts its 3 billion monthly active users.

Rather than paying to create content, Instagram gets a constant stream of posts, reels, and stories from its users at little to no cost. This keeps content costs low while maximising engagement.

This difference in expenses is reflected in ‘Operating Margins’, which is the profit companies keep after operating expenses. Meta’s last reported operating margin was 40.62%, compared to Netflix’s 32.3%.

Netflix spends heavily on writers, actors and editors to create content. Instagram, on the other hand, mainly invests in data centres, algorithms and servers, with users acting as both creators and consumers.

Instagram’s business model is built around the attention economy, where user attention has real economic value. Creators drive users to the app, keep them engaged, and businesses pay to reach them through targeted advertising.

By analysing user data to show personalised ads, it allows businesses to reach potential customers and measure campaign performance with great accuracy.

As AI and data analysis continue to advance, they will have an even greater role in marketing and content generation. This, at the same time, however, raises important questions on privacy as so many users continue to be unaware of how much of their personal information is used to ‘get the ads right’.

Instagram doesn’t just capture your attention; it’s the product it sells.

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Yet people spend thousands of rupees just to be able to say them.

When The Weeknd’s After Hours Til Dawn Tour crossed $1 billion in revenue, it became the highest-grossing tour by a male artist in history. More than 7.5 million tickets were sold worldwide, with stadiums selling out across multiple continents. Fans waited in virtual queues for hours, and many were willing to spend hundreds of dollars just for the chance to be there.

Economists call this social signalling. Sometimes, people buy certain experiences not just because they enjoy them, but because they want others to know they were there.

Nobody wants to be the friend watching Instagram stories from home while everyone else is posting videos from the front row.

Concerts are one of the few products where the experience often matters more than the product itself. A ticket gives you access to music, but it also gives you something economists call status value. People enjoy being part of something exclusive, rare, and difficult to get.

Concerts are built on Scarcity.

One artist. One stage. One night. Millions of fans. The fewer tickets available, the more valuable they become. Not because the seat changes, but because fewer people can have it.

Sometimes, organisers don’t just raise prices; they increase supply. After overwhelming demand, Shakira’s India tour added extra shows in Mumbai, proving that concert economics isn’t always just about pricing. It can also be about deciding how many tickets to sell.

But when organisers can’t add more shows, scarcity remains. That’s where resellers and

scalpers come in. They understand a simple economic principle: when something is scarce and highly desired, people will pay more for it. During Beyoncé’s Renaissance Tour and Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres Tour, resale tickets in some cities sold for several times their original price.

The seat stayed the same. The price didn’t.

Concerts also benefit from social proof. The more people talk about an event, the more others want to be part of it. A sold-out show becomes more desirable simply because it is sold out.

Suddenly, everyone wants the ticket they couldn’t get yesterday.

The Weeknd’s After Hours Tour generated over $1 billion in revenue, partly because demand far exceeded supply, turning tickets into highly sought-after experiences. In contrast, Kanye West’s planned Delhi concert generated attention but failed to create enough demand at its price point. Fans noticed the concert, but not enough of them saw the ticket as a status symbol worth

₹20,000. That money could buy you a phone, the new Nike drop, or 12 years of Spotify Premium?!

In the end, concert tickets are not just tickets.

Nobody buys a concert ticket hoping for a comfortable chair. They buy it hoping for a story worth telling. These are status symbols and proof that, for one night, you were a part of something everyone else wanted.

And sometimes, that’s worth more than the music itself.

He proudly explains how the flat bought for ₹50 lakh is now worth ₹80 lakh. Another uncle immediately regrets not buying property earlier. A cousin starts checking mortgage rates. Someone claims, “Property prices never fall”. By the time gulab jamuns with ice cream arrive, everyone is discussing real estate as if they are India’s top real estate experts.

The funny thing is that this is exactly how financial crises begin.

Economist Hyman Minsky noticed that markets do not usually crash when people are nervous. They crash when people are comfortable. As he famously said, “Stability is destabilizing.” The longer things go well, the more people believe they will keep going well.

Think about every trend you’ve ever seen. One friend buys a stock and makes money. Suddenly, the entire friend group is asking for investment tips. One person scores well using a particular study method, and half the class copies it. Humans love following success stories.

Financial markets are no different.

When interest rates are low and credit is readily available, banks extend loans more freely. Families take out mortgages to buy homes. Businesses borrow to expand. Investors borrow to invest. Rising prices make everyone feel smart. In a booming market, even bad decisions can look brilliant.

That is when trouble begins.

People stop asking, “Is this a good investment?” and start asking, “How much higher can it go?” Debt rises. Speculation grows. A bubble slowly forms.

The 2008 Global Financial Crisis followed the same exact script. Easy mortgages, rising house prices, and endless optimism convinced millions that property was a guaranteed path to wealth. Then prices stopped rising. Loans remained. Panic replaced confidence.

That sudden moment when everyone realized the party was being paid for with borrowed money is called a Minsky Moment .

The AI boom has some analysts wondering if we are in the early stages of a modern Minsky Moment. Companies are spending billions on AI, investors are rewarding anything related to the technology, and expectations continue to climb. AI is likely to disrupt the world economy, but Minsky would argue that the biggest risks come when confidence becomes certainty.

Minsky’s biggest lesson is surprisingly simple: financial storms rarely arrive with warning signs. They usually arrive when everyone is busy celebrating how sunny the weather is.

Minsky’s lesson remains relevant today: financial storms do not appear out of nowhere. They build quietly during periods of sunshine. In economics, the most dangerous words are not “We are in trouble.” They are “ Don’t worry, it can only go up”.

You suddenly remember you need a calculator for tomorrow’s exam, or maybe your phone charger has finally given up. A few taps later, you hit “Buy Now.”

The next afternoon, someone rings your doorbell.

How does Amazon do it? Surely your package didn’t travel across India overnight. Here’s the surprising part: it probably didn’t.

Long before you placed that order, Amazon had already predicted that someone in your area would probably buy that charger. Using demand forecasting, it studies shopping patterns, festivals, seasons, trends, and local demand to stock popular products in warehouses closest to customers.

Your package wasn’t fast because it travelled quickly. It was fast because it’s already nearby.

But getting the package to your doorstep is another challenge altogether. Imagine every delivery driver choosing random roads every morning.

More traffic. More fuel wasted. More time lost.

Instead, Amazon tries to make deliveries as efficiently as possible.

Imagine a delivery van carrying just one package to your neighbourhood. Now imagine that same van carrying 100.

The driver is the same. The vehicle is the same. The route barely changes. Suddenly, the average cost of delivering each package falls. The same warehouse stores thousands of products, transport costs are shared across many deliveries, and workers process more orders without costs rising at the same rate.

This is called economies of scale.

As Amazon grows, every package helps make the next one cheaper. Amazon’s regional delivery network has reduced the average distance between warehouses and customers by 15%, saving over $0.45 per package while making deliveries even faster.

Amazon doesn’t save time by driving faster. It saves time by making fewer mistakes.

The next time your Amazon order arrives the very next day, remember: your package wasn’t fast because it travelled across India overnight. It was fast because Amazon made the smartest decisions long before you clicked “Buy Now.”

The warehouse knew before you did.

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In Delhi, summer has started to feel less like a season and more like an endurance test. Stepping outside after lunch and feeling the loo hit your face like an open oven has become an everyday experience. Across homes, schools, offices, and roadside stalls, one solution dominates: switch on the air conditioner.

At first glance, air conditioners seem like the perfect answer. They provide comfort, improve productivity, and help people continue their daily lives during intense heatwaves. But from an economic perspective, the story is far more complicated.

Delhi’s growing dependence on cooling comes with a cost—higher electricity demand, rising household expenses, and increased pressure on the power sector. During extreme heat, electricity consumption rises sharply as millions of cooling devices operate at the same time. This increases operational costs across industries and places additional pressure on public infrastructure.

However, these benefits are not shared equally. Families with higher incomes can afford to stay comfortable and maintain productivity during heatwaves, while lower-income households often have to limit cooling to manage expenses. In economic terms, this reflects income inequality, where access to the same necessity depends on purchasing power. As temperatures rise, comfort becomes less of a choice and more of an economic privilege.

The impact extends beyond households. Small businesses, street vendors, construction workers, and informal workers often face reduced productivity and lower earnings during extreme heat. This creates what economists call a negative externality—where one response to a problem indirectly increases costs for others through higher energy demand and greater pressure on shared infrastructure.

The pressure becomes even greater during El Niño years, which are linked to hotter weather and weaker monsoons in India. Longer periods of heat reduce working hours, affect productivity, and slow economic activity.

Recent findings from the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) show that almost 76% of Delhi has remained under persistent summer heat stress over the last decade, while nearly half of the population belongs to vulnerable groups. The report also highlights that 92% of construction projects and a large informal workforce remain exposed to extreme heat, making it harder to stay both productive and safe.

There is also a hidden cost behind staying cool. More use of air conditioners means more electricity consumption, which raises household bills and increases long-term pressure on energy systems. While cooling provides immediate relief, rising dependence can make future economic costs harder to manage.

This creates what economists call an adaptation paradox: the very solution that helps people cope with heat today may increase economic pressure tomorrow if demand continues to rise without better planning.

The question, then, is not whether Delhi should cool down—it must. The real question is whether we can stay cool in a way that protects both household budgets and long-term economic growth.

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But here is the real question: was Savana really selling products or was it selling excitement? In economics, low prices often come with a clever strategy. Using the loss leader approach, Savana sold products at a loss to attract customers and generated over 1 million app downloads in just 3 days, and massive buzz online. The viral campaign also lowered its Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), the amount spent to gain each new customer, as public excitement and social media buzz brought in customers without the need for heavy advertising. It also generated over 50 million views.

The real genius was not the discount. It was the psychology. In a $150+ billion e-commerce market set for $325 billion by 2030, Savana showed that creating urgency can be just as effective as lowering prices.
As The Blair Waldorf famously said, “whoever said money doesn’t buy happiness didn’t know where to shop”. Savana understood the assignment. The sale relied on flash discounts and scarcity marketing. Limited stock. Limited time. Limited chances. And the result? Urgency.

Enter economics favourite trouble maker: FOMO, the Fear of Missing Out. You may have opened the app intending to buy one ₹1 top. Ten minutes later, there were 3 more items in your cart, a pair of earrings you never planned to buy, and a growing confidence that you were somehow “saving money”. Economists call this impulse buying.
This is where economics becomes interesting. The ₹1 product was not the main goal. It was just a way to get people through the door and gain consumer attraction. Once customers entered the app, many made additional purchases, while millions of others helped Savana go viral. So, was the ₹1 Sale really about saving money? Not really.

It was about creating demand and generating buzz. The ₹1 price tag was never the real product, but it was the advertisement.

“That’s all”

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The situation worsened when Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, a critical sea route that handles nearly 20% of global oil trade and about 40–45% of India’s crude imports, causing oil and essential goods prices to skyrocket. Brent crude surged from $86 to over $112 per barrel within weeks, underscoring how even the threat of conflict can rattle global energy markets.

But why is a distant war directly affecting our lives? The answer lies in oil—a key global commodity. India imports almost 85% of its crude oil, consuming nearly 5.5 million barrels of oil every day, largely from middle eastern suppliers. Almost 95% of India’s total trade passes through the Strait of Hormuz with almost 40-45% of crude oil imports travelling through this route.

Oil is not just another commodity—it powers transport, manufacturing, and energy generation. As prices rise, so do the costs across the economy. A 10% rise in oil prices can increase India’s inflation by 0.3–0.4 percentage points. Strait of Hormuz disruptions have further increased freight costs, delayed shipments, and raised import costs. Even if oil is flowing, trade itself has become more expensive.

The impact of the conflict does not stop at petrol pumps. Higher oil and shipping costs have sent shockwaves through the Indian economy. As India spends more dollars on expensive crude imports, the rupee has come under pressure and the current account deficit has widened. Investors, too, have become increasingly nervous, making stock markets more volatile. In economics, uncertainty is often as costly as the crisis itself.

The aviation industry has been hit hard. Economy fares to the US, once around ₹50,000, now average over ₹80,000. With aviation fuel accounting for nearly 35–40% of airline operating costs, rerouting flights to avoid conflict zones has increased fuel use, travel time, and ticket prices. Geopolitical uncertainty has become economic uncertainty.

While such conflicts are economically unavoidable, India has safeguards in place. It has diversified crude oil imports, increasing purchases from Russia and the US, and maintains strategic petroleum reserves to cushion supply shocks. These measures may not prevent price rises, but they can limit disruptions from becoming a larger crisis.

The US and Iran have finalised a 60-day Memorandum of Understanding, which is to be officially signed on 19 June 2026 in Switzerland. Although the recently finalised memorandum offers hope that the nearly four-month conflict may soon end, the crisis has left behind a valuable lesson. In economics, distance is often an illusion. A conflict in the Middle East, an oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, and a milk packet on an Indian kitchen table may seem unrelated. But in a globalised world, they are all part of the same story—and sometimes, the journey from missiles to milk prices is shorter than we imagine.