The Development of Digital Platforms: From Network Scaling to Ecosystem Efficiency

Abstract

The relevance of the study is determined by the changing conditions for the growth of digital platforms: as the user base expands, simply increasing scale ceases to be a sufficient explanation for sustainable value creation. The aim of the work is to systematize the mechanisms of value creation by digital platforms as they develop and to formulate a conceptual framework for the transition from network scaling to ecosystem efficiency. To achieve this goal, studies of network effects and two sided markets, ecosystem architecture and complementarity, platform governance, market power, and institutional regulation are compared. The study is of a theoretical and analytical nature; systemic and comparative analysis and conceptual synthesis are applied. It has been shown that network effects retain their fundamental importance, but their relative role changes: in the early stages, they ensure the formation of a critical mass and accelerate growth, whereas as the platform becomes more complex, the quality of interdependencies, complementarity, and ecosystem architecture management become central. A conceptual framework for systematizing the mechanisms of value creation in digital platforms has been proposed, including four states of economic logic: network formation, scaling, ecosystem integration, and selective coordination. It has been shown that as the platform develops, not only the value creation mechanism changes, but also the associated limiting factor: from the need to form a sufficient set of participants to ensuring the quality of interdependencies and their coordinated management. The Russian specifics are interpreted as a set of institutional conditions that influence the speed and limitations of the transition between stages. The practical significance of the study lies in the possibility of using the proposed framework to analyze the development of digital platforms and refine approaches to assessing their maturity. The prospects for further research are related to the empirical validation of the proposed framework and the development of measurable indicators for the identified maturity dimensions based on data from Russian digital platforms.