Unpopular opinion: the filler arc in Naruto is not why people quit, the pacing of the canon episodes is
I finally got my brother to watch Naruto last month and he bailed at episode 12, way before any filler. I went back and timed it, one flashback to the swing got replayed 4 separate times in a single fight. Everyone blames the filler lists online, but the real killer is the 3 minute recap and slow pan shots baked into the normal episodes. If you have tried getting someone into a long shonen lately, what episode did they actually quit on, filler or not?