I totally agree with you, as someone who had to learn it quickly for a new job. A bit of hearsay indicates that a former VP of Engineering at Twitter is not sure he would have gone with Scala again because of the on-ramp for new devs (https://www.quora.com/Is-Twitter-getting-rid-of-Scala).
Even if someone (a fan of Scala) doesn't believe it's that hard, the fact that this comes up again and again should really be an indication that it's truly an issue for people new to the language [1]. It is difficult, and it is intimidating. I would not have learned Scala if it weren't for the extrinsic push of learning it for a job.
[1] This applies to other things that people new to a language constantly complain about: Python's problem with v2 and v3, etc.
Even if someone (a fan of Scala) doesn't believe it's that hard, the fact that this comes up again and again should really be an indication that it's truly an issue for people new to the language [1]. It is difficult, and it is intimidating. I would not have learned Scala if it weren't for the extrinsic push of learning it for a job.
[1] This applies to other things that people new to a language constantly complain about: Python's problem with v2 and v3, etc.