That's just not how some people browse. When I hit HN's frontpage, I open every thread with an interesting headline in a new tab (within the HN tree.) Then I visit them one by one, and at least each one gets another tab opened (for the article.) The article may get multiple tabs opened if it has references or links that are interesting. If there's something that I want to get back to later, or don't have time to read now but looks interesting, it stays open. If I won't get to it for a while (before the next time I return to HN) it gets pulled out of the HN tree into its own tree.

  HN frontpage
  |> Interesting thread
  .|> Interesting article
  ..|> Interesting link from article 1
  ..|> Interesting link from article 2
  .|> Link from interesting thread.
  |> Interesting thread
  |> Interesting thread
  |> Interesting thread
  |> Interesting thread

Things that get moved out of tree I might get back to in an hour or a year.

If I'm at Amazon trying to buy a spatula, I have 10 different Amazon spatula pages open, and also three articles about spatulas within the tab tree.

I dunno. When I go to a bookstore, I don't buy one book, go home, then come back and buy another book. I browse the bookstore, buy everything that I want, and I put most of them on a shelf while I read one. I do not find the shelf a distraction.