SOME APPROACHES TO ESTIMATING THE VALUE OF INFORMATION SERVICES

Abstract

The rapid process of the scientific and technological revolution and the digitalization of the economics in a special way actualize some concepts that a few years ago seemed mundane and trivial. And such concepts can rightly include information. The difficulty of considering information from the point of view of economics is due to the fact that the amount of information increases exponentially, which increases the uncertainty of the economics. The purpose of this article is to consider some approaches to assessing the value of the information services. The keen interest in the information in our time is primarily associated with formation of the information society, when information began to affect all spheres of economic life. In the information society, information itself enters the turnover, forming part of the value of the goods. The use of information as an economic resource is considered in different directions. Among the main ones were: commercialization of information in goods, services, technologies; influence on subjective perceptions and expectations of economic entities. Modern information products are mixed information goods that combine explicit and implicit information. The components of the information costs are identified, and as a result, information becomes an important component of the production process and deprives other components of production – natural resources, labor, capital. Radical changes in the structure of the information services market are highlighted – the share of information goods is gradually decreasing with a faster growth of the share of information services due to declining business and population demand for equipment with improved technical characteristics, as its additional benefits are insignificant from most buyers. The monetization of the information services is considered – making a profit from information through the introduction of paid services, advertising, links, etc. The main approaches to the definition and classification of data monetization are identified: direct monetization, which consists of the sale or trade of data; indirect monetization, which uses data analytics to get an idea of the causal relationships and patterns of complex processes for better decision making.