I think his point is that the IO type may be an example of a monad, but shut up about the monad part because it's not relevant to learning how to use it.
This was my point when I wrote my "IO tutorial" (not a monad tutorial!): http://blog.raek.se/2012/10/19/haskell-io-in-five-minutes/
I think his point is that the IO type may be an example of a monad, but shut up about the monad part because it's not relevant to learning how to use it.