5G is a step back. It's a short range link, which may be nice in a densely populated area, but is useless outside that. And it already seems like providers are rolling back 4G support in rural areas.
Depends what you’re optimizing for. If you want improved bandwidth and latency it’s definitely not a step back. If you want larger cell sizes it is. The good news is they are not exclusive. One can have 5/4/3 G all coexist, as we do today. Unless the FCC wins it’s court case that is...