Formula 1 has always been function over looks. Just in a few decades we have had weird wings popping out from weird places in the cars and the dick noses. Compared to those the halo doesn't look half bad. Only reason people are complaining about its looks is that something like that is being pushed from the top instead of someone finding a loophole in the rules and just adding it to their car for a few races/one season before it gets banned/rules change.
Check out some of these cars Honda RA108, Ferrari F2012, Arrows A22, Any 2014 car. And I'm limiting myself to only the last ~10 years or so. Go further back then that and you get fan cars, 6 wheels, even crazier wings and air intakes. Most of them were fine with the fans because they were added for speed not for safety.
Hell the fans/drivers complained about mandatory helmets, then mandatory full face covering helmets, then the side walls in cockpits, then the weird neck strap thing that keeps your head from moving around in crash. If its for safety everyone will complain always. Also a big complaint was when the driver was moved further back in the car to give some crash protection in the front by having a meter or so of the nose crushing instead of the drivers feet. Yeah everyone complained about that too because it made the cars "ugly".