Yeah it's really overblown. I applied for an ETA online last year and it took probably about 15 min from searching for where to do it to the confirmation email dropping in. It was pretty painless, much more so than the ESTA process for travelling to the US&A and even that one isn't particularly difficult.
Its not so much the process that is the complaint here, as that the UK government is intentionally using Big Tech style anti-patterns to push engagement in a particular manner. It's a dangerous precedent (and not even close to the first time they've done similar).
