Аннотация:The purpose of this paper is to validate the hypothesis that the shift to the digital economy is not another change of a technological trend (via, say, the 4th industrial revolution) but a change in the paradigm of the economic development that entails changes in the nature of labor division, the way of interaction among business entities, and the basis of economic power. Methods. A combination of the historical, evolutionary, and institutional methods of research has been used. Conclusion and significance. The transformation of the paradigm of economic development is characterized by changes in the nature of labor division, the dominant way of interaction among business entities, and the basis of economic power. Changes in the nature of labor division imply intellectual and organizational centers getting separated from production and service departments. Changes in the dominant way of interaction among business entities imply the gradual displacement of the free market as the leading way of interfirm interaction by value networks. Property ownership, in a classical sense, is ceasing to be the main foundation of economic power, its place being increasingly taken over by a status in the hierarchy of the field of interaction that enables one to establish the rules for interaction and distribute added value.