I agree with the OP.
But swap the term "newbie" for "casual user" or "non IT user", and more people would agree. Even the nerdiest IT Pro was a newbie whenever they use a distro for the first time.
Avoid the term "normie" too, as people have different ideas of what normal is. There are more non IT, power users who have a deep knowledge of their applications, than all Linux users put together.
So this discussion is all around a sloppy choice of terminology.