CHALLENGES TO GLOBAL INEQUALITY FROM BIG TECH COMPANIES BUILDING A NEW DIGITAL ENVIRONMENT

The development of ecosystems creates new opportunities for both the economy as a whole and the financial sector. But at the same time, this development also creates new risks associated with the growth of the market power of ecosystems and their deep penetration into the business processes of market participants and the lives of citizens, which confirms the lack of alternative to regulating the activities of digital giants and the digital ecosystems they create. The consumer (user) is the main resource of the ecosystem, providing its competitive advantage. By accumulating market power, digital ecosystems create a profitable business model for suppliers, provide users with new opportunities due to the effect of scale and the introduction of a new customer experience. As a result, the choice of users in the digital space expands, the efficiency and competitiveness of the national economy in the international landscape increases. An important aspect of modern international competition is precisely digital ecosystems and platforms. There are different approaches to reducing the manifestations of digital dominance. The Chinese and American approaches to regulating digital platforms are aimed at reducing the power of digital giants that have already conquered the world markets within the country. In countries where national digital platforms are just being formed, this approach does not promise to be adapted. The traditional market-oriented approach is based on the assumption that the regulation of national ecosystems and digital platforms should not contradict the basic principles of competition and create artificial preferences for individual national players that already occupy a leading position. At the same time, given the conflicts that arise when trying to tax or determine the cost of processed information and/or data as a new generation resource, regulation is a condition for the accelerated implementation of digital technologies in national business models with their subsequent scaling. The development of a new approach to the relationship between regulation and self-regulation of digital ecosystems and platforms will contribute to the aggravation of global inequality. Digital ecosystems formed from several digital platforms and services create additional financial values, and through the use of unified profiles and end-to-end services make the work of users even more convenient. There are different approaches to defining digital platform operators as an information intermediary. The manifestations of digital inequality depend on the models of digital information intermediation: (1) the information intermediation model, which includes all sites that allow third parties to offer and host content (videos, music, photos, documents), services or goods and marketplaces; (2) the information intermediation model, which includes all sites that represent a gateway to access other content (all sites that offer “information content”), such as online search engines, search content aggregators or price comparison services. It has been established that ecosystems that include social networks in their business model usually offer their services to users free of charge, after which the ecosystem itself increases its potential to attract advertisers. The presence of network effects provides an assessment of the impact of a digital ecosystem on the ability of an economic entity to exert a decisive influence on the general conditions of circulation of goods in the relevant goods market.