I can see that, but a couple of weeks of investment doesn't seem "incredibly high" to me.
It took me about a week of fairly vigorous effort to start writing it fluently, but I also have the advantage of having seen and written many other programming languages. I have a few anecdotal examples of friends who are great developers, but still have trouble with Rust's ownership system.
When I say something like "incredibly", it's after thinking about trying to teach it someone more junior (like you'd see in a corporate environment with a mix of skill levels). I think that this would be a very difficult task.
This is the very definition of "high barrier to entry". Clearly it wasn't too much of a barrier for you but I can see how it'd be an issue for people. I'm expecting editor support and wider adoption (differently constructed tutorials, SO answers) to lower this barrier. I think Rust has the potential to be very popular, particularly if the reputation shifts from "high barrier to entry" to "slightly harder to get started but fewer problems in production".