Good points, the first 6 months can definitely be brutal. Another option if playing acoustic, is to get some nylon strings, which don’t grind the end of the finger near as much. That was day one of the lessons I got, swapping those strings out.
Honestly not a fan of nylon.. at least if you aren’t playing classical guitar.
Pain is part of the process, if you want to play steel string you have to go through the pain.
What o found was I could play for maybe 10 minutes before pain would be bad. But if I put it down for a few hours I could play for another 10 minutes. I was committed to learning at least to the point of strumming some songs around the campfire, so I would do this probably 4 or 5 times a day or more. Didnt take too long before I could go 15 before it became intolerable, but same hour or two break Ana I could go another 15. Kept this up and I’m a few weeks I was going quite long without insufferable pain.
Then the next big hurdle was the barre chords, first being able to lay it down and come out consistently and then being able to transition in and out of them while keeping tempo/rhythm. That took me way longer than getting past the initial finger pain. Then it was building up the wrist and forearm muscles to be able to play songs using nothing but barre shapes etc….