Years ago, when I first started Airframes, there was a lot of contention between having the content users need, and having users to provide the content. Airframes is a community-driven, community-sourced data platform that requires not only user participation, but also requires the technical knowledge to setup the devices to even start contributing.
The lesson learned was that friction to getting users started not only slows down adoption, but slows down your ability to be successful. Your platform has costs associated with it, and the longer it takes to get users for your platform, the more you are bleeding cash.
Fast forward to today, and we have billions of data points contributed, and it is starting to thrive.
We still have a lot of work to do with Airframes, in order to make things simpler, more enjoyable to use, and exposing the data so that community contributors and paying customers can access the data effectively. But we're making progress!
Short advice to you on my lesson learned:
Do not make things hard for your users. Do whatever you can to make the experience so easy that they can't wait to contribute, buy, whatever.