I don't understand. Paper can't navigate but you don't need navigation. Why can't the underlying vision of everything except navigation work just as well?
The web is more than a place to read an article like on paper. It is a place where articles (ressources) have their own URL and are linkable, sometimes even in both directions (think of trackbacks and pingbacks, following the vision that was way more prominent in the beginning, or xanadu). You need navigation for that, it is essential for what the web provides.