[brlewis]

My hunch is that Accept-Language became the best way to determine a user's language about the time it became common to bring a laptop while traveling. People use arguments today against Accept-Language that have been wrong for decades.

EDIT: Best initial way to determine a user's language. MDN is right that overrides should be possible. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Content_ne...