The marketing of a resolution really won out. People will fight you if you suggest a high bitrate 1080p encode can look better than a low bitrate 4k.

Bitrate aside, the marketing stopped making sense long ago:

- 720p/1080p is counting vertical pixel resolution

- 4k/8k is counting horizontal pixel resolution

- "4k/8k" is not actually 4,000/8,000 horizontal pixels

- Suddenly the "p" becomes irrelevant (Not that most people even knew what it meant to begin with)

- 720/1080/4k/8k totally disregards aspect ratio

- Consumers already have a way to compare, and they're called "megapixels"

- 2.1MP (1080p) and 8.3MP (4k) etc. is a lot more consumer friendly since it's already used for cameras.

Marketing really won at making this a mess.