As evidenced by the confusion in this StackOverflow question, the creation of the first node in a replica set shouldn't yield an arcane error message.

NotYetInitialized: Cannot use non-local read concern until replica set is finished initializing

Perhaps detection of this case with a more helpful error would be more helpful. Especially considering that this is behavior is likely to be experienced by new and inexperienced users.

Something like

NotYetInitialized: replica set needs to be initialized with rs.initiate() before proceeding with startup