The degree of difficulty with learning Elixir/OTP depends on what one needs to learn. Phoenix web development has its own domain of learning requirements where as other domains have theirs. Learning Elixir is one thing but learning OTP, and then learning how to make sound decisions about design/architecture, is far more demanding of effort and time. "How do others solve this?" leading to github search tends to fall far short of what one would find with other language ecosystems.