Youre not completely wrong but the main influence was probably Youtube. The sad thing is 16:9 phones were the peak of phone evolution, everything after/longer than that is hardware designed specifically for doomscrolling.
I still have my iPhone SE 1st gen with the perfectly ratioed 16:9 display, so nice not having black bars, while also having room to put my thumbs while I hold it in landscape watching a video.
My main phone, a Pixel 7a, is better in every way but my goodness holding it while watching a landscape video is terrible because my fingers keep occasionally touching the edges which are registered.
The size was the main factor why I still went with an older Pixel 4a.
But then again, I of course am no savage and watch my porn on a proper desktop PC.
I thought humanity had encountered some common sense and most devices aren't six inches big. I was wrong
I think, I remember how ridiculously large Samsung Galaxy Note 8 felt when it was 6"+ in 2017. Now pretty much every phone is larger, even my old Honor 20 pro appears to be larger than 6".
I still think a phone should allow the user to reach every part of a display with a thumb, but yeah big screen fits more porn memes at a time
still buying only small ones. even with "One-handed mode" i can't reach everywhere on the big ones with only one hand and my hands are larger than average.