Well, that's where all the Android notifications usually go, so ... that seems like a downside of having a notch?

We're getting into subjective stuff, but for me once I get more than 3 notification icons up there what I get from glancing at it is less "here are the specific notifications you have" and more "you have a lot of things you need to address". I think I generally don't get a benefit out of having 8 or whatever notifications visible at once.

I get that it is still a downside. It may not be a big downside for everybody though.

Notifications are on the side though. If you have so many notifications that the notch would cover them, you're probably not caring about those notifications anyway?