Digital Goods Research Articles

Digitalna ekonomija i novi kapitalizam - generacija Z kao potrošač

The development of the digital economy and the 4th Industrial Revolution (IV R) bring new dilemmas to economics. The challenges are numerous, and in our paper, we concentrated on two important phenomena of digitalization: (1) whether data has become an equally important factor of production as capital, labor, and land and (2) what changes occur in the structure of costs with the appearance of digital goods. Bearing in mind that these changes were deeply reflected both on the supply and demand side, in this paper, we have devoted special attention to the behavior of Generations Z and Alpha as consumers compared to other generations. We wanted to see, at least preliminarily, what kind of consumer profile is formed by the new generations born in the digital age and IV IR, that is, what kind of changes are occurring in the behavior of consumers of Generations Z and Alpha. We carried out research on their behavior on a sample of over 500 respondents.

Company performance model of wholesale carrier service companies in Indonesia: Company capability, co-creation strategy, and external business environment

The goal of the study was to assess how Indonesian ICT companies that provide wholesale carrier services can manage the external business environment and improve their performance with the help of their co-creation strategy and corporate skills. Using partial quadratic structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to evaluate the research hypothesis, the study concentrated on 45 Indonesian ICT companies offering wholesale carrier services. The outcomes demonstrated how the company's co-creation strategy and capabilities increased its effectiveness and greatly improved its capacity to negotiate the external business climate. According to these results, enhancing organizational capacities and putting co-creation techniques into practice should be Indonesian ICT enterprises' top priorities if they want to improve performance and successfully navigate the external business environment. Involving consumers, users, or other stakeholders in the design and development of digital goods or services is known as the co-creation strategy. It can happen in a lot of different ways, such hackathons, online platforms, workshops, or prototype sessions.

КОНЦЕПЦІЯ, ТРЕНДИ І РИЗИКИ ЦИФРОВІЗАЦІЇ ПРИ ФОРМУВАННІ ЦИФРОВОГО СУСПІЛЬСТВА

The article reveals the trends and risks of digitalization, which today is the main factor in the formation of a new society. Digitalization is seen as the high point of the globalization process. Digital technologies have increased the effects of globalization, weakening the factors that hinder interstate economic interaction, which has become a determinant of the growth in the share of international trade in national economies, thereby increasing the degree of interdependence of states, international integration and the role of large private companies in international trade. Digitization as a complex and multifaceted phenomenon is of particular importance, since the developed global level of the technological process and the prevalence of digital technologies led to the active involvement of people in the online environment. And although the states are at different stages, we can affirmatively talk about the last stage at which the population of the planet is, having reached the global scale of digital technologies. The acquired level of distribution and use of digital technologies indicates the formation of a digital space, the structure of which consists of computer technologies, mobile devices and other means of virtual and augmented reality, in which communication between users is deployed, the movement of information flows takes place, as well as production, distribution, exchange and consumption of digital goods and other types of social interaction. The digital space is the main source of formation of the digital economy and contains all its processes and elements. Modern society is in the thick of digitalization. In almost all areas of social life, we find a wide array of different practices that are subject to digital change. The Internet and social media platforms have changed how we receive information and experience entertainment, socialize, shop, and present ourselves. We develop and are confronted with new digital business models that are based on the “new gold” of user and process data. Apps and “smart” machines are designed to make sense of these data in order to automatically understand patterns or to control industrial processes in the context of Industry 4.0 (the Fourth Industrial Revolution). Algorithms, autonomous vacuum cleaners, cars or weapons and humanoid robots are in different stages of development and implementation. All of these manifestations and practices are obviously connected to questions of digital security, democracy, and how politics and legislation deal with these new phenomena of digitalization.

PROVISIONS ON IMPORTATION OF ELECTRONICALLY TRANSMITTED DIGITAL GOODS STUDY CASE: INDONESIA

In a world increasingly reliant on e-commerce, the need for comprehensive international trade regulations, ensuring fairness and inclusivity in this digital trade has become paramount. In 1998, the World Trade Organization (WTO) introduced a moratorium on customs duties for electronic transmissions, signalling a commitment to a tariff-free environment for digital commerce. However, this decision has sparked extensive debates among WTO members, particularly concerning the definition and scope of electronically transmitted content. The study delves into Indonesia's provision for imposing customs duties on digital goods transmitted electronically, offering insights into its policy background, legal framework, and implementation procedures. Employing descriptive qualitative research methods, this study aims to provide a holistic understanding of Indonesia's customs duties provision for digital imports through electronic transmission. It captures the nuances of this policy by presenting real-world data, observations, and interviews with stakeholders. Indonesia Government has regulated the importation of digital goods through electronic transmission with the issuance of the MoF Regulation Number 190 Year 2022 regarding Import Provisions for Home Use. The provisions include three main points: exclusion from some provisions of importation of tangible goods, a minimum requirement of filled-in element data in customs import declaration, and a monitoring and submissionmechanism. In conclusion, the provisions of digital goods importation, which Indonesia has implemented, accommodates usefulness and easiness to the importers in declaring import declaration. As a result, there has been a significant increase in the number of import declaration documents for digital goods since the regulation`simplementation in January 2023.

“New stage, new reality, new role”

Learning is being shaped/reshaped in this digital era and the pace of these changes is accelerated by the use of social media. Many teachers are spending an increased amount of time creating and distributing content via social media platforms. It is suggested that this practice can support their cognitive, affective, social and identity growth (Trust et al., 2022). At the same time, there is a growing body of literature debating the pros and cons of adopting social media in higher education (Willems et al., 2018; Hamadi et al., 2022). Although there is a significant number of studies examining the teachers’ use of Twitter, Instagram and Facebook for professional and educational reasons (Park, 2022; Davis & Yi, 2022; Randahl et al, 2022; Greenhalgh, 2021), a scarce attention has been paid to teachers, who create visual media content for YouTube. We aimed to explore the motivations and values related to teachers’ engagement in YouTube content creation practice. As we analysed the several theoretical lines of literature, we are settled on a comprehensive framework for interrogating the data. From the outset, we viewed the YouTube platform both as a landscape for teachers to interact and create artefacts, and an affective space appropriated by its users (Reckwitz, 2012). To this we added the concept of imagined communities (Gr?dinaru, 2016) that connects teacher through virtual sociability and sustain them as they create digital goods. Goffman’s theory of performance (1959) offered an additional layer of understanding the sense of belonging to these communities. Finally, we suggested the value creation framework by Wenger-Trayner et al (2019), which includes five dimensions of value for professional development. In the second part of our research, we applied our framework analytically to 105 YouTube video channels identified as teacher produced content. To date, in-depth, purposive, semi-structured interviews have been conducted with 15 participants (school teachers) through Skype, Zoom and/or Facebook Messenger. Our intention is to reach about 50 over the course of the study adding higher education teachers as well. Our initial analysis showed the three key messages: • Teachers take a proactive role believing that nowadays is the time of creating and sharing new knowledge; • Teachers signing up for this proactive vision become a part of the imagined community of like-minded colleagues; • The process of video-making involves constant research for new teaching ideas and personal transformative changes. We believe that our study may provide some implications for tertiary education. Importantly, it explores and analyses a different image of teaching and learning, crafted in visual media, which might spark enthusiasm to embrace the video sharing platforms in higher education and enhance agency in the digital world.

Methods for Building Successful chatbot Communication in the Discourse of Sales in the Field of Digital Goods (Mobile Phones) on the Example of English and Russian Language Materials

Introduction. Digitalization processes have been actively penetrating the life of a modern person in the last decade. Artificial intelligence in various forms and formats creates new linguistic knowledge about the communication process. By creating new features and rules of speech interaction in various types of network discourse, the problems of achieving the success of speech acts built through chatbots remain ineradicable. This problem is especially acute in the field of advertising and PR, where communication with target auditors and target groups of the public is one of the most important tools for achieving the company's goals.Methodology and sources. A preliminary assessment of the effectiveness and potential of chatbot communication necessitates this. Using the method of linguistic modeling, you can create conditions and prescribe certain “rules” for successful interaction between a person and a chatbot. To create models for the Russian-speaking and English-speaking spheres, it is necessary to conduct a frame analysis and construct concepts of concepts that dominate in advertising discourse, or rather its variety: the discourse of sales in the field of digital goods (cell phones). To do this, it is necessary to conduct a corpus analysis of texts: the texts of oral and written speech in the corpus collected independently will be analyzed, and the results of the sample in the NOW corpora (in English-corpora) and NCRL will be analyzed. Also, for the compilation of models, communication and conversion analyzes will be required.Results and discussion. As a result of the study, the article presents not only possible communication models that function in the discourse of sales in the field of digital goods (cell phones), as well as leading the greatest number of speech contacts to success, but also a universal algorithm for parsing chatbot communication in other discourses. In the course of the study, it was possible to obtain confirmation of the assumption of a significant difference between the English-language and Russian-language models of achieving speech success in chatbot communication.Conclusion. Preparation of a communication model updated from the point of view of a certain discourse and comparison of research data through the materials of two languages will help to identify similarities and differences for each area, and, among other things, will ensure an increase in the efficiency of the communication process built through chatbots in a business environment.

СОВЕРШЕНСТВОВАНИЕ НАЛОГОВОГО АДМИНИСТРИРОВАНИЯ В УСЛОВИЯХ ЦИФРОВОЙ ЭКОНОМИКИ: ПРАВОВЫЕ АСПЕКТЫ

The dynamic development of information technology, which currently is taking place all over the world, is changing the existing conditions in the economy and public administration. Borders between countries have not been perceived as a barrier to information and financial flows for a long time, and the mobility of capital and the development of financial technologies have led to the fact that the minimization of taxpayers' obligations is increasingly taking place in the digital field. New virtual and hybrid business models are being created, the spread of digital goods and services is accompanied by the development of fraud in the field of electronic commerce, and the emergence of startups based on modern technological solutions leads to the invention of shadow digital assets. As a result, the behavior of not only consumers but also professional participants in the turnover, as well as government agencies, is changing.

Dark Web Marketplaces: Data for Collaborative Threat Intelligence

The dark web has become an increasingly important landscape for the sale of illicit cyber goods. Given the prevalence of malware and tools that are used to steal data from individuals on these markets, it is crucial that every company, governing body, and cyber professional be aware of what information is sold on these marketplaces. Knowing this information will allow these entities to protect themselves against cyber attacks and from information breaches. In this article, we announce the public release of a data set on dark web marketplaces’ cybersecurity-related listings. We spent multiple years seeking out websites that sold illicit digital goods and collected data on the available products. Due to the marketplaces’ varied and complex layers of security, we leveraged the flexible Selenium WebDriver with Python to navigate the web pages and collect data. We present analysis of categories of malicious cyber goods sold on marketplaces, prices, persistent vendors, ratings, and other basic information on marketplace storefronts. Additionally, we share the tools and techniques we’ve compiled, enabling others to scrape dark web marketplaces at a significantly lower risk. We invite professionals who opt to gather data from the dark web to contribute to the publicly shared threat intelligence resource.

The Digital Hawker Economy in Dalian from the Perspective of Alienation of Labor: Logic, Connotation, and Pathways

Analysis of the digital hawker economy in Dalian, within the context of global capital expansion and labor alienation, helps understand the dialectical relationship between the formal and informal economies. The study adopts a desktop research approach, utilizing existing data from Dalian Statistics Bureau to demonstrate the interactive nature of the labor process among peddlers, means of production, and labor products, revealing the phenomenon of alienation within this process. By analyzing data provided by ByteDance officials, it becomes evident that the digital peddler economy in Dalian suffers from structural deviations. The pathway for the digital peddler economy lies in establishing digital platforms while avoiding the ideology of consumerism associated with digital goods. To achieve a more visual understanding of the dialectical relationship between formal and informal economies, this study uses R Programming for 3D modeling and regression forecasting analysis of Dalian's formal economy. Additionally, modeling the labor process of Digital Hawkers enhances the understanding of the dialectical relationship between the traditional peddler economy and the digital peddler economy. The research suggests the need to optimize relevant policies for traditional peddlers, allowing Dalian's informal economy to stabilize and complement the formal economy amid global capital expansion. Only through collective efforts from the government, platforms, and society can the healthy development of the digital peddler economy in Dalian be achieved, thereby promoting urban economic prosperity and social progress.

OPTIMISATION OF DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION BUSINESS PROCESSES

The methods to increase the revenue of companies in the digital distribution market are determined by the author through consistent monitoring of operating and marketing costs, prudent planning of advertising campaigns, and continuous analysis of current unjustified or excessive expenditures. Furthermore, it is necessary to increase the costs of technological development, the company's technical equipment, and improvements in the distribution channels for digital goods, and to redistribute costs by increasing both operating and marketing costs, as well as technological expenditures. The above findings are based on the author's multi-factor model of digital distribution business processes, and they reflect on the leading companies in the industry. By applying BPMN and the conceptual principle of "pulling" digital goods and services to the market, a model for optimising the digital distribution business processes of an international company is developed.

The boundary between digital goods and E-services in cross-border E-commerce and implication for non-discrimination under the WTO system

Abstract One of the biggest challenges of implementing value-added tax (VAT) collection on cross-border digital goods and services is the compliance with World Trade Organization (WTO) obligations. The lack of a clear distinction between goods and services in the WTO agreements and divergent classifications adopted by states have led to fragmented and inconsistent VAT collection, potentially creating trade barriers in international e-commerce. This article analyses various approaches to classify goods and services including technological neutrality and tradability. It also uses the modernization of Thailand’s VAT system as a case study to demonstrate the complexity of categorizing digital goods and services for VAT enforcement in international e-commerce. It finds that technological neutrality and tradability are key criteria to separate digital goods from e-services for the proper implementation of WTO obligations. The article concludes with remarks on the correlation between categorizing digital goods and services in VAT collection and protectionism in cross-border e-commerce.

Smell test: sphere transgressions and counter-transgressions in legal dispute resolution

ABSTRACT The article applies the critical lens of sphere transgression to the field of law, with a particular focus on legal dispute resolution. The engagement of technology corporations with dispute resolution is described in terms of either facilitation or disruption, depending on whether the corporations aim at modernizing the existing justice system, or substituting it with their own adjudicative institutions. The article argues that, while facilitation can be understood as a transgression of technology into the sphere of law, disruption ultimately amounts to a counter-transgression of law into the sphere of digital goods. These observations help illustrate the usefulness of sphere transgression as a critical lens.

Multi-Device Consumption of Digital Goods: Optimal Product Line Design with Bundling

Multi-Device Consumption of Digital Goods: Optimal Product Line Design with Bundling

Should competing suppliers with dual-channel supply chains adopt agency selling in an e-commerce platform?

In this paper, we examine which of an agency selling or a wholesale contract offered by an e-commerce platform competing suppliers with typical dual-channel supply chains should adopt, where the products are not differentiated between a direct channel and an indirect platform channel, as in the case of digital goods. Specifically, we consider the situation in which each of two competing suppliers chooses its distribution strategy regarding whether it sells via a direct channel and/or an indirect channel via the platform. In addition, a supplier also chooses an agency selling contract or a wholesale contract if selling via the platform. Constructing and solving a game-theoretic model, we derive the primary result that, in equilibrium, one supplier sells products only via the direct channel, while the other supplier sells via both the direct channel and the platform channel through adopting a wholesale contract, even given the assumption of symmetric suppliers. This finding yields the managerial implication that a supplier selling products of the same quality between direct and platform channels in a competitive environment should not adopt agency selling but instead a regular wholesale contract when selling via a platform. Moreover, this finding reverses the conventional insight from existing models in previous studies that at least one competing supplier always adopts an agency contract when the suppliers are without their own direct sales channels.

Features of Digital Markets Functioning

The transition from an industrial society to an open information society based on digital technologies is accompanied by the formation and becoming of a digital market, which objectively requires increased attention of scientists to a comprehensive and more detailed study of socio-economic problems and the development of the consequences of this process. Due to the relevance of the proposed topic, the article examines the essence of objects and subjects of a digital market, highlights the specifics of digital goods and services. It reveals the content of e-commerce as the main segment of a digital market, gives a brief description of a digital services market.

New approaches to measuring welfare

AbstractEconomics has traditionally understood ‘welfare’ (what makes a life go well) as the satisfaction of preference. This conceptualisation of welfare is typically measured using revealed preferences, proxied through income and prices or stated in willingness‐to‐pay surveys. Recent decades have seen growing challenges to this paradigm. The climate crisis, among other phenomena, has called into question whether income and price data effectively proxy preferences, and willingness‐to‐pay surveys continue to struggle with accurately pricing important items such as biodiversity, digital goods, privacy and social connections. Preference satisfaction as a welfare criterion has also been challenged conceptually by psychologists and scholars working in the development space, among others. In this article, we review recent innovations in alternate ways of conceptualising and measuring welfare for the purposes of economic welfare analysis. We focus on using stated preferences over aspects of well‐being, life‐satisfaction scales and the WELLBY approach, and well‐being frameworks such as Bhutan's Gross National Happiness Index. While not without weaknesses, these approaches also have marked strengths relative to the traditional approach.

Accelerated Verifiable Fair Digital Exchange

A Fair Digital Exchange is defined as either all or none of the participants achieving a (predetermined) desirable outcome. This work addresses third party mediated systems for digital content where mutually unknown, and hence non-trusting, buyers, sellers and the mediator (third party) take part in an exchange protocol. We address the lack of guaranteed fairness, as defined above, in the existing platforms for this setting. We present TEDX, a decentralized solution for guaranteed three party fair exchange of digital goods with scalability and support for incremental deployment over the existing (non-fair) platforms. TEDX combines carefully crafted message exchanges with incentive schemes designed to deter malicious behavior. TEDX also leverages ideas from blockchain anchored state-channels to provide trusted execution while minimizing the operational overheads of blockchain. We present the design and a security analysis of TEDX to validate the claimed fairness properties. We also present the details of a prototype implementation of TEDX leveraging Hyperledger Fabric and performance evaluation of the same on a realistic testbed spanning five public cloud zones. Our results indicate that TEDX adds only a minimal overhead of 16% while being 46x faster than a naive blockchain solution, thereby demonstrating that TEDX is scalable.

DEVELOPMENT OF TRADE IN DIGITAL GOODS IN THE CONTEXT OF RECOVERY ECONOMY OF UKRAINE AND ACHIEVEMENT OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS

The role and necessity of the development of digital trade is increasing in the condition of extremely difficult conditions of conducting military operations, the destruction of infrastructure. The purpose of the conducted research was to formulate the main measures to intensify the development of trade in digital goods, which should be implemented at different levels of management to restore the economy of Ukraine on the basis of sustainable development. The article systematizes and summarizes the developments of domestic and foreign scientists regarding the theoretical and methodological foundations of intellectual property, trade in digital goods, features of their accounting and taxation, organization, and marketing. The necessity of determining the priority directions of digital trade development, taking into account the modern needs of economic recovery, is substantiated. Attention is focused on the differences between the concepts of digital goods and products, although in scientific publications and practical recommendations they are often equated. The level of digital development in Ukraine compared to other countries of the world is shown. The directions for revitalizing the trade in digital goods through the improvement of digital distribution and ensuring the right of ownership are outlined. The main forms and properties, the differences between trade in digital goods and traditional trade, which must be taken into account in the formation of trade policy, are revealed. Barriers inhibiting the development of trade in digital services in Ukraine have been identified. The main measures to intensify the development of trade in digital goods at the national level of management and at the level of business entities are proposed to restore the economy of Ukraine and achieve the goals of sustainable development. Their implementation will contribute to the acceleration of integration into the Single Digital Space of the EU, the expansion of access to online markets, the formation of a digital environment in Ukraine in accordance with European requirements and standards.

Digital inhibitors in higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic

The novel Corona Virus (COVID-19) global pandemic has brought vast changes to people’s lifestyles in general and has changed business processes globally. The education systems are not spared from the COVID-19 impact and business delivery procedures. Africa mainly being the consumer of digital goods and services and not necessarily the producer as shown in the centre periphery model was not spared either. This paper explores the effects of COVD- 19 at institutions of higher learning and how they were immensely affected resulting in increased use of the web 2.0. However, the digital learning methods encountered digital inhibitors which include but not limited to accessibility, connectivity, social, geographical, economic, legal and technological digital issues. Challenges faced by the community of higher learning institutions in Zimbabwe embracing the digital learning tools are discussed. Using a qualitative approach, this article interrogates the impact of these higher education digital inhibitors in Africa with special reference to Zimbabwe during and post COVID-19 global pandemic. The research instruments used were online interviews and experiences. It is against this background that the writers unearth digital inhibitors in higher education during the COVID-19 era. Post COVID-19 era cannot be still business as usual. It is recommended that to bridge the gap there is need to consider Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) as basic necessity not a luxury that have too be accessed by all as well as being in a position to operate the tools and having information literacy skills.

All External Reference Prices Are Not the Same: How Magnitude, Source, and Fairness Shape Payment for Digital Goods

Music, movies, e-books, news: all industries that have been impacted by free distribution of their products. For many individuals, this wide availability of free substitutes drives users’ willingness-to-pay down. In this environment, how can platforms motivate consumers to pay for goods that they may be able to get for free? We demonstrate providing flexibility in payment through allowing users to “pay what you want,” along with providing external reference prices (ERPs) set by different sources, that is, other similar consumers or the platform itself, can influence payment. Importantly, a site-set ERP has more influence increasing payment than a socially-set ERP. An interesting nuance to this is that when the ERP is perceived to be high, the marginal effect of an increase in ERP on payment is smaller than when it is perceived to be fair; in other words, providing a fair ERP is more effective in increasing payment than providing an ERP that is too high. Altogether, platforms can leverage these findings in designing interfaces to provide information that can motivate consumers to pay for digital goods.