I think I understand what the author is trying to say. For me the feeling that you are browsing a "web of documents" is that you know that you are clicking around for information. It is very basic. You look at and read a page with some links. You find something interesting and click on a lick. This produces a deterministic action: another page loads with some links. That's it. It might look slightly different but it doesn't move around when components are loading dynamically, no pop-ups, no red "1" badges that try to grab your attention. It will either load slowly or it will load fast, it won't alternate between the two while loading.

The main focus is the content of the document and the other content it leads to. Not the style, the features, the tech that it uses to load the content. I compare it to books. Most books are the same, predictable. They will have text and some images on pages. When turning a page it will show another page. It wont suddenly ask you to log in or go buy another book in the middle of this one. The covers of the books are slightly different but the basic function is the same. That's it.