TIME AS A RESOURCE OF THE INFORMATION ECONOMY

Abstract

The article considers the category “time” in terms of the information economy. The subject of the study is the category of time acting as a resource of the modern economy. The main purpose of the article is the formation of the author’s concept of time as an economic resource in the conditions of the information economy. The methodological base is made up of concepts of foreign and domestic researchers regarding the concept of time; first of all, the concept of M. Heidegger. In combination with a set of such general scientific and special methods of cognition as a dialectical, historical, systematic, descriptive, selective one, the article reveals the significance of time as an economic resource. Existing methodological approaches to the study of this category become critically comprehensible. The concept is based on a resource approach. As a result, the crisis of applying the classical methodology of the industrial economy to the study of time as a resource of the information economy is determined. The main problem is the fact that the value of an information product is largely dependent on subjective factors and cannot be related to the total time spent on producing such a product. The transformation of the influence of time on the processes of production and consumption in terms of the information economy is considered. Conclusions. Based on the results of the study conducted, time as a public resource is proposed to be considered in 3 aspects: as a production resource (time of work), in which it reveals internal competition with other types of resources; as a promotion resource, in which the time of consumption of the corresponding product has an alternative with the time of consumption of another similar product (commodity competition); time as a resource of consumption or a personal resource (which determines the possibility and desire of the individual to consume a particular good). The article defines mechanisms of the influence of the time factor (as one of the important economic resources) on the process of social reproduction. The author’s concept of information flow rate is formulated, the resource phase of time is characterized, and the author’s list of differences of time functions in the information and classical economy is proposed. The author’s category “speed of information use” has been introduced, which is the basis for considering the possibilities of consumers of information to an adequate choice of the object of consumption. Differences of time in the classical and information economy are formulated and their comparative analysis is carried out. Specific features of consumption in the information economy, where consumption is associated with the search and interpretation of necessary information, are determined. The factor that complicates consumption is called the increasing rate of the information flow, expressed by the increase in the number of messages, which complicates the search and increases the number of errors in the choice of the information product. As a factor determining the price of labour in the information economy, it is suggested to consider the social demand for a particular product (information) and the subjective evaluation of the product by the consumer. It is proposed to consider time as a complex economic factor that acquires its resource value, only coinciding at a certain point of time with such characteristics of information as: content (adequacy), completeness, and price. In fact, at the theoretical level, an economic model of the space-time continuum is proposed, which creates the prerequisites for continuing the study of the proposed theory.