Author headshot dot JPEG. Article title. Intro paragraph with 17 words, three of which are bold. Pull quote of sentence with two bold words. Bar graph.
Content like this would never be acceptable for those of us who do not need assistive technologies; why do we accept it for those that do?
Alt text is increasingly being thought of as a requirement for images on the web. Knowledge of how to effectively use alt text is not as prevalent. If all content on the internet were treated the same as alt text, I'm afraid a majority of the internet would strongly resemble this article's opening paragraph.
Maybe someday artificial intelligence will be able to thoughtfully convey the meaning of these visuals. Until then, users of your websites are dependent upon you to consider what content is missing without visuals and to provide a meaningful alternative, not simply a description of the visual it replaces.