Flip the switch position and the MOSFET type. Watch what voltage the gate driver has to produce, and whether a plain ground-referenced driver can reach it.
A MOSFET turns on when its gate-to-source voltage crosses threshold: an N-channel needs the gate above its source, a P-channel needs it below. So the winning question is always "where does the source sit, and can I reach past it from a ground-referenced driver?"
The source is bolted to ground, so it never moves. The gate only ever needs 0 V (off) to about +10 V (on), both referenced to ground and both between the rails. A logic pin or a cheap ground-referenced gate driver does it directly — no charge pump, no level shifter. On top of that, electron mobility is roughly 2-3x higher than hole mobility, so an N-channel part hits a given Rds(on) in 2-3x less die area than the equivalent P-channel: cheaper, smaller, cooler. That combination is why almost every relay, LED, motor, and fan low-side driver is an N-channel FET.
Put the FET between +12 V and the load and the source rises to nearly +12 V when it conducts. Now the gate has to reach roughly +20 V — above your own supply rail. That's exactly what a bootstrap capacitor or charge-pump gate driver is for, and it's why integrated high-side drivers exist. Great when you need it, but it's more parts and more design effort.
Source at +12 V, gate pulled down toward ground to turn on. It keeps the load grounded (nice for safety and for shared-ground systems) and needs no above-rail voltage. The catch: the gate lives at +12 V, so a 3.3 V or 5 V MCU can't pull it fully off by itself — you add a pull-up to V+ and a small NPN/N-FET to yank it down. Plus the P-channel silicon penalty on Rds(on). Common, just not as trivial as low-side N.
To turn it on you'd have to drive the gate below its source, and with the source near ground that means a negative voltage from a dedicated negative supply. All cost, no benefit — this quadrant stays empty in practice.
Assumes a 12 V rail and a ~3 V threshold; numbers are illustrative round figures, not datasheet values.