For most people not using macos 4k is overkill and 1080p can be enough not by itself but because the other two major OS (windows and linux) have antialiased tex

For most people not using macos 4k is overkill and 1080p can be enough not by itself but because the other two major OS (windows and linux) have antialiased text with subpixel hinting. I.e. they can exploit the pixel internal structure to display sharp text even on low resolution monitors. Apple deliberately decided to ditch their own implementation as you don't need it for retina displays and they only sell and care about retina displays.