It's also about resolution scaling. When 240p or 480p was common, most people only had 15-25" screens so they looked accurate. Nowadays 40-65" is common and 4K is the common resolution, or 1080p for smaller/cheaper TVs.

1080p is 2.25 times larger than 480p, 4K is 8 times larger than 480p (my math may be off...). Take any 480p picture and then zoom in 800% and it will look like shit, putting a 480p picture on a screen with a native 4K resolution will do the same thing. The screen is simply too big for it to look like it would on a common CRT unless you're like 25 feet away from the screen.