A GAME-THEORETIC MODEL OF THE INTERACTION OF E-COMMERCE ENTERPRISES UNDER NETWORK EXTERNALITIES

The article presents a comprehensive model of the game-theoretic interaction of enterprises in the e-commerce market. The model functions under conditions of network externalities. The relevance of the study is due to the saturation of the e-commerce market with IT solutions and many interconnected participants. This requires the development of flexible and realistic tools for cybernetic modeling and competitiveness analysis. The main element of the model is the integration of game theory and machine learning (ML) methods. Unlike common classical models based on the assumption of perfect rationality of players, the study applies the concept of bounded rationality through the mechanism of probabilistic strategies of Quantal Response Equilibrium (QRE). The proposed approach made it possible to adequately model the behavior of e-commerce companies, since these companies strive for profit but make decisions under conditions of incomplete information and limited resources. These constraints a priori make their actions not always optimal. Each enterprise is considered as an agent. The agent in the model chooses a strategy vector that includes price, quality, marketing intensity, and inve