The history of alt text goes back to 1993. The alt attribute was introduced for HTML 1.2 to be used for text-based browsers, which load faster by not loading most of the graphic content. This was a big deal when bandwidth connections were super limited.

This is because graphics require more bandwidth to load quickly due to being larger files (compare a .txt file with a .jpg file). Folks who remember using the internet in the '90s might also have intentionally forgotten "lag" and images that took forever to load if they loaded at all.

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