Depends on how you define "friction". I would say requiring me to give them my name, address, phone number, employment status, information on where my money is coming from and where it is going, copies of my passport and driver's license, selfies, and copies of my latest colonoscopy, to then have to give up custody of my money and still risk being locked out my account and waiting months for support to get back to me to be far more friction than simply finding a well rated user and trading with them directly peer to peer.
True, especially in the past several years there's often even more friction compared with the legacy highly-regulated financial system. But these type of sites tend to be at the top when googling 'buy bitcoin' in English and in other languages. And they often started as less restrictive; many users will (sometimes happily, sometimes grudgingly) provide whatever is asked of them to continue using a give service. The requirements are also lower for people who try to buy/sell small amounts, so there's sunk cost to be taken into account, especially with services happy to accept money before freezing them and requiring verification.