Its actually a loss for Google, they are selling a good set of secure hardware for a cheap price in hopes of gleaning your data. But yeah the notch is stupid, especially when icons fall under it.

No, its a decent phone and GrapheneOS has degoogled everything and sandboxed play store if you use it. Storage spaces are sandboxed, camera and mic off switches. Lots of other security and privacy options, and 5 years of support

GrapheneOS on a Pixel phone. Immich self host as a replacent for facial recognition and albums on google photos