Yeah 4K means jack if it’s compressed to hell, if you end up with pixels being repeated 4x to save on storage and bandwidth, you’ve effectively just recreated 1080p without upscaling.

Just like internet. I’d rather have guaranteed latency than 5Gbps.

Yep, just imagine how bad the compression artefacts will be if they double the resolution but keep storage/network costs the same.

Bingo, if I were still collecting DVDs/HD DVDs like I was in the 90's, it might be an issue. Streaming services and other online media routed through the TV can hardly buffer to keep up with play speed at 720, so what the fuck would I want with a TV that can show a higher quality of picture which it can also not display without stutter-buffering the whole of a 1:30:00 movie?

Well then I've got great news for you!

4k tvs existed before the content existed. I think the larger issue is that the difference between what is and what could be is not worth the additional expense, especially at a time when most people struggle to pay rent, food, and medicine. More people watch videos on their phones than watch broadcast television. 8k is a solution looking for a problem.

I think it’s NHK, or one of the Japanese broadcasters anyways, that has actually been pressing for 8K since the 1990s. They didn’t have content back then and I doubt they have much today, but that’s what they wanted HD to be.

Not only the content doesn't exist yet, it's just not practical. Even now 4k broadcasting is rare and 4k streaming is now a premium (and not always with a good bitstream, which matters a lot more) when once was offered as a cost-free future, imagine 8k that would roughly quadruple the amount of data required to transmit it (and transmit speee is not linear, 4x the speed would probably be at least 8x the cost).

And I seriously think noone except the nerdiest of nerds would notice a difference between 4k and 8k.

That's usually the case

Not only does it not exist, it isn't wanted. People are content watching videos on YouTube and Netflix. They don't care for 4k. Even if they pay extra for Netflix 4k (which I highly doubt they do) I still question if they are watching 4k with their bandwidth and other limiting factors, which means they're not watching 4k and are fine with it.

TV manufacturers are idiots.

Asus makes their version of a 4k OLED LG panel with no shitty 'smart' software.

For what content?

Seriously though, quality 4k media is hard to find outside of ... "finding it" on the internet.

It's because for the Average Joe, having a TV box at the end of your driveway that has the latest big number on it is important. It's how they gain their identity. Do not upset them for obvious reasons.

Not sure where 1440p would land, but after using one for a while, I was going to upgrade my monitor to 4k but realized I'm not disappointed with my current resolution at all and instead opted for a 1440p ultrawide and haven't regretted it at all.

My TV is 4k, but I have no intention of even seriously looking at anything 8k.

Screen specs seem like a mostly solved problem. Would be great if focus could shift to efficiency improvements instead of adding more unnecessary power. Actually, boot time could be way better, too (ie get rid of the smart shit running on a weak processor, emphasis on the first part).

so if you're in the movie theatre sit as close to the screen as possible

8K would only work well in a movie theater type setting I guess.

4k 25" was worth it for me but I only spent about £140 on it so YMMV it's nice but not essential and after 1080p the extra pixels only add so much

I've hit that same wall. I'm perfectly happy with a $300 smartphone, because it does absolutely everything I need to do, fast enough to not make me want to throw it across the room, and well enough that I don't notice the difference between it and a high-end device.

Do I notice the difference after three or four years of having the device and finally upgrading it to a new device in that price range? Sure, I notice it. But day to day use, I don't notice it and that's what matters.