I think you're saying its a lie because there is no product yet? I can see how you think that. If he did build the product first though and one person signed up and he had to pivot to something fairly different, that'd be a lie too then effectively. Except, now he wasted a lot of time building.
My POV is if you're only taking email addresses for people to know when it's available anything on the site is just your plan. Plans always change.
I wonder how the returns work out for sticking 'Email me to when it's ready to be tried' or something. I can see you getting fewer numbers, potentially, but I wonder about the people who are actually interested in the product vs drive by triers.
At least seems more respectful of people's time than 'try it free' just for them to have to click through and find out what it's about.
