Yes. But safety is a spectrum, and is denominated in inconvenience against perceived expected loss - perceived, because people round the loss down to 0 when they feel like it won't happen to them.
See: how many people don't fasten their seat belts, or hold a phone in their hand while driving, despite both being highly dangerous to life, limb and wallet, and against huge social and regulatory pressure.
See also: how many people ignore or tape over error lights on the dashboard; how many people don't repair stuff until absolutely necessary.
See also: how many people try to bribe their way through yearly inspections, and would happily skip them entirely if the law didn't force them.
So it's like GP said: people mostly care about how much time and money they're going to waste on the newly discovered problem. A recall involving the car being physically taken to manufacturer is hugely disturbing, possibly very costly (it's not like most people drive for fun). A recall involving an OTA update? That's "just another auto-update ¯\_(ツ)_/¯". Most people won't even notice it happening.
Putting the two types of "recall" in the same class is, from regular person's POV, deception through equivocation.