What is the reason for the incongruous ways to refer to display and video resolution?

It is about 4x the resolution

It’s 4 times the amount of pixels of 1080p.
8K is ‘only’ 7600 pixels wide.
But 7.6K doesn’t sell well, I think.
Ah, I see that @ARE_you_kidding_me beat me to it….

I guess 2160p would lead people to believe it’s only double

It’s marketing, not technology, that is at play here.

4K sounds modern and cool. @rebbel has it right; the others just don’t have the same pizzazz.

But the reasons 4K is going to ultimately fail:

1) additional bandwidth required for a 4K stream in the US where bandwidth is measured and charged for

2) on mobile device streams the difference between 4K and other streaming is of minimal benefit. The screens aren’t large or good enough to make it worth 4K

3) on home viewing devices, 4K is still top end and high price, and people aren’t going to rush right out and buy new TVs. Look at 3D-TV – that died ugly.

4k will be the new standard since it’s backward compatible with other formats. Even cheap tv sets are 4k now so that’s how it will be relevant. 3d died because of the added cost and hassle.

I don’t think a name has been completely settled on… most the TVs are still marketed with multiple terms. You’ll see 4k, UHD, and 2160p all included usually.

Either way, 4k is actually a lot clearer what you’re getting than the rollout of 720p, 1080i, 1080p all under the “HD” banner. I would think people prefer actually knowing what the standard means.