You say this as if browsers invented floats. Pretty sure TeX has knowledge of floats. Would have to double check, as I am used to LaTeX. These are not new terms to publishing.

Edit: Saw in a following post that TeX doesn't have direct primitives for what are commonly called floats. \midinsert and the like aren't quite the same, and while \parshape is hella powerful, it isn't the same either. I'm still skeptical that these aren't powerful enough. And I'm still fairly certain LaTeX does have floats, but I was wrong on TeX.

Can confirm that LaTeX has floats. They can be a bit finicky to work with but they are there.

Floats and positioning are easily the most misunderstood parts of the web. So, not sure it matters that they are finicky.