Virtual digital economy: problems of terminology

The world is currently undergoing changes caused by the rapid development of digital technologies. Despite their influence in almost all spheres of society, the terminology used by researchers to describe these changes is still quite controversial and needs to be clarified. In this article, we have considered such terms as "post-industrial economy", "information economy", "digital economy", "network economy", "sharing economy", "virtual economy", "industry 4.0", "metauniverse", and shown that they do not precisely determine the specifics of the new digital reality and the economic interactions that arise in it. To characterize them, we suggest using the term "virtual digital economy", which reflects the features of economic relations that develop in the system of production, distribution, exchange and consumption of network digital goods based on digital technologies