Natalie

was just reminded of the fact that everyone still casually calls it "alt text" despite the fact that users using a visual user agent which supports images haven't actually seen the alt attribute for years now, only the title attribute

This is goofy but it's pretty easy to understand and sympathize with how it happened:

• The alt attribute is defined to meet the simple need to make images comprehensible to non-visual user agents
• Visual user agents make this text visible on hover which can be useful for understanding images that are unclear for whatever reason
• Authors (who never even considered using alt for accessibility) realize what it does and start putting little "hidden" messages in the alt attribute
• Clever little hover messages are not very useful for non-visual user agents, though
• As accessibility practices become more widespread, this conflict becomes more pronounced
• The title attribute is defined specifically for little hidden messages
• In order to discourage the use of unhelpful alt attributes, it's no longer visible by default in visual user agents