I understand that anecdotal feedback isn’t conclusive. However, the fact that we’re seeing multiple discussions—in this thread, on various forums, and on Reddit—where people consistently look for ways to disable or reduce the edge barrier suggests the concern might be more widespread than just a handful of vocal users.
Try a neutral search for “edge barrier kde” (without additional biasing terms like “disable”). On my end, most of the initial results involve users asking how to turn it off or calling it out as an annoyance. While not a formal metric, this does indicate that dissatisfaction emerges naturally in general searches. Additionally, other popular operating systems don’t enforce a universal barrier across all edges by default. I have used many O.S in my life, including my current dual boot with Windows 11, I’ve used Macs, Manjaro with X11 and other flavors of Linux, and I had never seen this behavior before. I thought it was a bug caused by different DPI between my monitors.
I’m not sure what more would be considered “proof.” Polls or formal usability tests could help, but given the consistency of what we’re already seeing, it’s fair to wonder how many more signals we need before acknowledging that the current default isn’t working for a lot of users.