Unless you plan to be a professional musician, why does it matter if you “get far”? Isn’t it supposed to be for fun?
If you’ve already picked up reading music for one instrument, it’s a ton easier for the next one.
You want to have fun playing along to your favourite song. Or impromptu jam with a friend. Or sing for yourself because a song reminds you of a memory.
They all have a minimum skill requirement, without which it isn't as enjoyable. You need to know to play reasonably well by ear to have fun imo.
I just had a kid so this is pretty real to me. How it will go is anybody's guess, but I hope it does go well :)
I guess I believe more in the Montessori idea that kids are intrinsically motivated to learn and excel, and they will tend to be naturally drawn to work hard at the skills that they are best suited for.
I understand the idea that some skills have a hump to get over and it’s good to encourage that determination, but I’d also guess that for every person like you who is glad they were pushed to learn some particular skill, there is another person who it affected very negatively. So I suppose it’s a bit of a gamble in that sense.
This is a completely alien perspective to most people. Most people never even really try to be good at anything. That you think this quirk of your own psychology is the norm shows a deep disconnect with the mass of mediocre people who don’t care about being competitive because they’re not trying to get highs up on some leaderboard. https://danluu.com/p95-skill/