Digital transformation and zero marginal cost

The digital transformation of production systems has significantly influenced the change in the paradigm of production costs. The classic cost accounting system in linear industries can no longer be applied to the costs of digital production systems. On the one hand, the model of calculating the costs of input resources is completely changing, and on the other hand, in some industries, the costs of storage and distribution of products have fundamentally changed. The aim of this paper is to analyse the new model of cost accounting in digitalized industries that have transformed from the classic linear business model to the digital model, that is, in industries that have moved from the production of predominantly physical products to the model of producing digital content. The production and distribution of digital content implies a completely new paradigm of calculating variable costs, which has directly influenced the new cost model known as zero marginal cost. The production and distribution of digital content in the zero marginal cost model first affected the media industry, and later spread to other industries that organized business in the platform economy model. Zero marginal cost is always lower than the smallest cost in the economy of scale model, which completely changes the existing scientific and professional paradigm of cost models in the production of goods and services.