Ironically, one of the best ways to develop your ear, and therefore become a better musician, is to try to learn songs by ear. u/sshoihet expressed scepticism that learning by ear makes you a better musician now it may not be as simple as that but you cannot learn by ear if you don't have a well-developed ear. Therefore, the most important skill that a musician can have is to have a well developed ear. You hear and appreciate music with your ears. You don't hear sounds or music coming from a piece of paper or from a computer screen. You don't develop your own playing style that is uniquely you. You will also hit a wall very early on where you can play other people's songs according to someone else's interpretation but that's it. Unless you understand the why, you can't improvise or contribute to your band/ensemble if they want to start writing or rearranging songs. They can, to some extent, show you the how but not the why. The main problem that I have with tabs is that, if used on their own, they can hinder your development. But understanding intervals, the names of the notes and where they are on the fretboard is extremely important, along with scales and chords. Most bassists and guitarists never have to use sheet music because it’s generally not written for them, especially guitar but to some extent bass, and so being able to sight read sheet music is not necessary to be a good player. And that if you only ever read tabs and don’t learn music theory and at least a basic understanding of sheet music you will be limiting your playing.
So don’t feel bad for using them just be cautious knowing that a lot of them are inaccurate. Not saying that tabs are strictly bad, they’re not, but as they are used today they can be limiting.
However you should understand that tab is like the lowest form of notation in that there is a ton of it and people who don’t understand music all that well totally rely on it, so there’s a ton of inaccurate tabs out there and people who can only read tabs and lack musical understanding are hindered as a result. Tablature actually goes really far back one of my professors said to even before modern notation but I think he’s off on that (that’s another discussion).