There are certainly people buying iPhones essentially for fashion/status-symbol reasons: i.e., because they look visually different from other phones, whether that is because of thinness or anything else. Why else would so many Android devices have copied the FaceID notch so soon after it was released?

Are notches popular? The Androids I've seen have used a hole punch camera ever since Andy Rubin's Essential. There's certainly no Dynamic Island.