It expanded the universe and provided a massive backdrop to the galaxy, by doing an immense amount of world building.
And apparently that pissed a lot of people off.
The fact of the matter is that in 15 minutes of that whole Pod Racing sequence what leads up to the race till the end of the race, does more world building than all 3 of the OT movies combined.
People bitched about all the CGI in TPM, and how they should have used practical effects... without realizing that TPM had more practical effects done in it, than the entire OT.
People hate it because it was trendy to hate it. People got upset because it expanded lore in directions they didnt realize were perfectly reasonable.
I say this as someone who grew up with the OT including a Box set of the original THX VHS tapes....
The Prequels did an amazing job of world building and creating a backdrop for the OT to sit in.
And for some reason people got upset with that.