[dewey]

Nobody “requires” these tools to have a “usable” experience. Millions of people are using it just fine without all these tweaks.

[rhinoceraptor]

A menu bar manager only becomes necessary when you have a bunch of extra things installed on your system that each have a menu bar item.

[geekraver]

Or when you have a #$@^$! notch

[eddyg]

Apple is giving you extra pixels, not taking any away.

If you want the same appearance (and resolution) as a non-notch MacBook Pro, open System Settings, go to the Displays section, click Advanced... and toggle on “Show resolutions as list”, save that change, and then enable “Show all resolutions”.

Now select the resolution option just below your current selection. (The y-dimension will be slightly less, which equals the space added by the pixels around the notch.)

[mikl]

Problem was they also massively increased the spacing between menu items, so the amount of menu bar items you can fit before it is a problem has dropped massively from before.

[mmaniac]

I was never bothered by the notch, but this is useful advice that seems to be little known. Thanks!