Wow, what a meltdown! All this over laser scanning tracks? So because you think your Patrol is awesome (hint: it's not.), and you could just do that up and race it for the cost of going sim racing (hint: you couldn't), that means the rest of us must be nerds and pretenders who think sim racing makes us real racing drivers? Not at all. I've only been here for a few years now (I believe since 2013), but I know for a fact there's quite a number of members here that do race in real life, and even more that do casual track days from time to time. None of us think that sim racing makes us real racing drivers, because many of us have been/are real racing drivers, and anyone with two brain cells to rub together can tell the difference between the two.
The entire point of sim racing is kind of in the title: To simulate racing. It's never going to be a replacement for the real thing, and we all know that, but it's a very cheap, safe alternative. If I wanted to get back into racing, the best I could hope for would be club level racing at my age, and even that would involve forking out tens of thousands for a car, appropriately prepped for racing, not to mention the ridiculous ongoing costs involved in racing. I can buy a professionally made sim rig, mid range wheel (T300), a console, and a bunch of racing sims, for around $1500aud. Even a sports exhaust for a road car costs around $1000aud, so I'm not getting anywhere near racing on that budget.
As for the cost of proper racing, not just some club level stuff, even karting is expensive. Moving up from karting though, the next level would be Formula 4 here in Australia, and that costs about $250,000 per season. Without great sponsorship, not many people can afford the cost of real racing these days.
I reckon you'd be able to pick up a T80 or T100 second hand for less than the price of a DS4, and both of those work on PS4. I mean, they're not great wheels, but they'd at least be a small step up from a controller.... Ok, the T80 might not be, but the T100 at least has ffb lol.