Also: if you learn the Chinese radicals, then you don’t have to actually learn eleventy billion characters (also Simplified Chinese muddies this a bit) because you can key off the components of characters as hints and aids
Like the time I was trying to catch a bus in Taipei, and I saw one whose sign said 景美, and I knew it was going to Jingmei even though I wasn't (at the time) familiar with the first character. (I wasn't going to Jingmei.)