> if Microsoft didn't bundle IE and the user hadn't received a copy of those ubiquitous AOL CD-ROMs which came in the mail/magazines (and sometimes carried the Netscape Navigator installer), how is the user expected to consume content on the web without a web browser?

Go to store, by a CD with browser, install. The age when boxed software was a major thing extended past the point when IE started bundling IE.

Of course, with a TCP/IP stack you can get software from the internet a lot of ways without a web browser, too. FTP was a thing, after all.