I sometimes find it hard to understand the GNOME's design rationale. When GNOME 40 moved the dock from the left side to the bottom of the screen, it created an ergonomic problem for mouse users, who now need two large mouse gestures to switch apps -- first to the upper left corner to reveal the dock, then all the way to the bottom. And in the issue thread[1], Gnome's designers seem to be carefully avoiding the obvious solution of a hot bottom edge, proposed by several commenters, which is how Mac OS has always handled an auto-hiding dock.

https://gitlab.gnome.org/Teams/Design/os-mockups/-/issues/68