I am not a fan of MacOS myself. I would much prefer to run Linux or a very customized Windows installation.
However, for most normies, I believe MacOS is the better default experience over the bloated, ad-ridden thing that Windows is these days.
And unfortunately I cannot get any similar hardware that would run Linux or Windows... nothing fanless even comes close and that is unfortunately not about to change, so as someone who really likes their quiet, I have to bite the bullet...
If the notch is the only objection of yours, well they really must have done a good job. I cannot believe Apple is the budget and bang-for-your-buck choice in the laptop world these days. At least in the phone world, that is not the case, fortunately.