Gotta give them credit for selling it lol. It’s pretty much a given the next phone is going to shrink it, then eventually they will eliminate it altogether. No one seriously wants a hole punched display.

Android’s notifications are actually a great concept for their simplicity - every app with notifications is one icon in the status bar - that’s being somewhat abused by a feature added in later versions of Android: background activities have been increasingly limited with every major Android version to save battery, except for apps with active notifications. Hence the seemingly unnecessary notifications by apps that use them just to stay alive.

Plus the sheer number of apps that want your attention keeps increasing.

As a workaround you can ask Android not to show certain types of notifications from certain apps (except for some system apps). Swipe the notification slightly left or long-press it, and there should be a cog icon or button that takes you to the available options for the respective app. Or depending on brand and model of your phone, go to Settings and search for “notifications” for additional options.

You can use notification settings to “Minimize” any unwanted permanent notifications – in that way they’ll not show an icon in the tray area. (You can also just disable any notification type, but Android is more likely to stop any background task that doesn’t display a notification.)