THE GLOBAL PROBLEM OF DIGITAL INEQUALITY AND ITS KEY FORMS

Abstract

The last decade has been characterized by a particularly dynamic increase in the physical volume of the mass of information circulating in the global infosphere, which, according to analysts' calculations, doubles every two years, regardless of the economic situation. Already in 2018, it reached 33 zeabytes of data against the background of 61% average annual growth of the flow in the last five years. The very term "access" (as a key measure of the digital divide) began to be actively used in foreign sociology at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries. under the influence of the rapid spread of information and communication technologies. The latter, having fundamentally changed the theoretical ideas about the economic nature of information, conceptualized the mechanisms of its use with the aim of expanding property rights to tangible and intangible objects, increasing the material well-being and social status of individuals in society. Digital technologies and cross-border data flows have a powerful impact on the structural parameters and dynamics of world trade, on the basis of reducing the total transaction costs of commercial operations, uniting a large number of enterprises and companies around the world and, most importantly, opening up to small and medium-sized businesses all the opportunities to be "born global" and spread their hi-tech ideas around the world. Among the specific practical mechanisms of digital trade cooperation, the so-called "smart value chains" deserve the most attention, thanks to which the processes of digital transformation of economic activity have been significantly accelerated in the last three decades. In view of this, the fact that in the period 1998-2018 the competitive positions of a number of global corporations underwent significant changes in the global market is quite natural. In particular, about 15% of them were absorbed and ceased their independent existence; and the "stable backbone" of the global corporate system represented by the companies IBM, Siemens, Sony, Toshiba, Hewlett-Packard, Fujitsu, as the data show, demonstrated a significant inhibition of the rate of increase in profitability, while maintaining the ability to quickly adapt to the dynamically changing trends of the global scientific and technological progress Instead, corporations specializing in the digital technology sector - Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Huawei, Facebook, etc. - are gaining unshakable leadership positions on the global market, which actually shape the global digital agenda.