The author observes that 4K TV sets have come down dramatically in price but 4K content seems to be retreating into a niche. For the latter he cites price increases to his streaming services.<p>He wonders why this is, muses on cultural history and doesn't come up with a precise answer.<p>I propose the answer is simple: the prices of TVs and streaming services are unrelated. Hardware tends to trend down in price as we get better at making it.<p>Content is not the same. Most of the content you watch on streaming services is owned and produced by an oligopoly. Streaming disrupted their lucrative cable model, and they want to get its prices and profits back up to the peak levels of cable. Since they're an oligopoly and they collude with each other (formally or informally), there's not much you can do about it. It will mean 4K is irrelevant for many people who don't want to indulge their latest price hiking tactic.
Instead looking at smartphone screens, it seems to me we're approaching the "CD moment" - in case of screens it's the DPI. Can't see a pixel with a naked eye? Not even when a water droplet forms a lens? If so then packing more pixels doesn't... change anything; in pretty much the same sense that after 44.1 kHz 16 bit it's the human senses that don't perceive any difference.<p>Seems screen-wise the new frontier is brightness and HDR.
I watch tv on my 720p non-smart tv and it still feels like I'm living in the future. Nobody <i>needs</i> 4k. Hell, nobody needs 720p. A lot of people lives in a luxury bubble.
Once I started running 3D games in 4K I'm never going back to 1080p. I presume this has something to do with anti-aliasing which is crucial for rendered image quality. For movies, however, I can barely see the difference between 4K and FHD. My point being: camera video is one thing and real-time rendered 3D world is something completely different when it comes to 4K.
Article doesn't mention AI upres tech like DLSS, which could be the future. My experience on 4k monitors is that DLSS is noticably better than 1080, and not much worse than native 4k. Don't know about 8k, but I think 4k is a sweet spot for TVs.
Of course, the author’s main point, that 4K isn’t worth the additional fees most providers charge, is demonstrably true. However, there’s another factor the author didn’t mention: a 4K TV also adds high dynamic range (HDR), an improvement that definitely <i>is</i> noticeable regardless of one’s distance from the screen. Even “just” 1080p is pretty snappy when HDR is available. For example — and, yes, I know many HN commenters aren’t into sports, but just for the sake of the example — HDR makes a world of difference when you’re watching, say, a night game and can see a much more realistic range of brightnesses in uniforms, helmets, and even just stadium lighting in general. The same is true for watching 4K/HDR travel videos on YouTube.