In a way that's a good thing - having a user work through the frustrating UI and still be interested in the product is amazing validation. Early adopters can self select.

It's an amazing biased validation, though. You won't be able to determine the usage patterns of the average user, and that's what's important.

How does that follow?

If someone is willing to use it even when it's absurdly cumbersome then they are going to turn into customers. Once you build it you can iterate to find the best patterns.

It makes them resent you and long for a competitor.

Our experience was to the contrary. It's not shown in the blog post, but users were thanked for their feedback immediately.

The reaction was overwhelmingly positive; people were excited that we were building something in this space.

I think it's natural to think that people will react this way. It turns out that people react completely differently. In my experience employing this tactic across several different verticals (SaaS, ecommerce, games), I have found people to react positively (yes, please make this!!) or neutral/mildly disappointed (darn, I wanted to use that). Never resentful.

which sounds like the most valid form of market validation.