Other perfectly legal responses:
242 - TOO MUCH COFFEE (Server is overcaffeinated and processing requests too quickly)
299 - SUCCESSFUL BUT SASSY (Request succeeded but the server is throwing shade about it)
333 - QUANTUM UNCERTAINTY (The server simultaneously succeeded and failed until observed)
452 - EXCESSIVE TOAST
in other words, they decided to break the standard
are we sure it's the standard who's wrong?
I also think the supermajority of engineers prefer fun entirely outside of work, hence why open source can feel so lonely and without corporate funding would probably shrink to a pathetic size. Hence why personal websites are so culturally irrelevant. Or why there's such a lack of artistic experimentation in apps or web. Or why there's so few non-corporate meetups nowadays in CA or NY.
Let this HTTP code be a reminder of that.
"I think that it's extraordinarily important that we in computer science keep fun in computing. When it started out, it was an awful lot of fun. Of course, the paying customers got shafted every now and then, and after a while we began to take their complaints seriously. We began to feel as if we really were responsible for the successful, error-free perfect use of these machines. I don't think we are. I think we're responsible for stretching them, setting them off in new directions, and keeping fun in the house. I hope the field of computer science never loses its sense of fun. Above all, I hope we don't become missionaries. Don't feel as if you're Bible salesmen. The world has too many of those already."