The key word here is "people". As in, "people on messageboards and people in the industry". I.e. not the average consumer. People also told you you had to get a PSP because of the graphics, and that the Wii wasn't worth $250 because the hardware was weak and it couldn't do 720p. Heck, 1080p is this thing that supposedly we should have gotten with the PS360 area, and for all the talk about 1080p being so important, there are so many games on the PS4 that still can't achieve 1080p to this day. Yet, I don't see so much outcry outside of forums on the internet.
The real reason why you'd want to get a PS4 back then was because of the inevitable exclusives and because Sony wasn't trying to pull a fast one on consumers unlike Microsoft when they first unveiled their strategy with the XBO. Also because they weren't trying to sell you a Kinect.
The TV market would deserve a separate thread, but really, this is the same discussion that has been had since the Blu-Ray/DVD and SD/HD days: we shouldn't confuse supply and demand, as manufacturers will gradually replace old tech with new tech once they've sold the first few models to enthusiasts at a premium and brought costs down. And we also shouldn't automatically assume that a 4K TV is bought because it's 4K. It's even worse than that: even if someone tells you they're buying it because it's 4K, you shouldn't assume that they know exactly what 4K is, or that they even notice the difference. And even if they notice, that doesn't mean that they care all that much about it, or that they wouldn't trade it for other benefits they value much (such as price, design, weight, features, or some kind of interesting innovation). Most likely they'll buy it because the picture looks nice, the screen is big enough, the price is low enough, and someone told them 4K is the latest and greatest.
If you ask people, even me, what they'd rather have between HD and 4K, they'd say 4K. It's just like that Henry Ford quote: "if I'd asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses". With all else being equal, a fuzzy knowledge of tech, and no real alternative proposition on the market, you'll end up choosing what's seemingly better along the existing metrics, or nothing at all.
