I think the real problem is that people are going for free tabs, and the free tabs online are just kinda awful. They don't just miss information, but they also contain outright errors.
If you’re serious about learning a piece, so you can perform it, you’ll want to transcribe it yourself, buy some better tabs, or buy sheet music. Or do some combination of those things. It’s not a problems with tabs themselves, but the general low quality tabs you see in ASCII art from random websites.
(For what it’s worth, I think it’s really easy to find sheet music for popular music. Sometimes too easy… I search for some pop song and get a couple dozen different arrangements for different instruments at different levels. The catch is that you have to pay a couple bucks.)
You know, tabs weren't always awful [1]. Before and during Web 2.0, back when the web was rife with JS-free, non-commercial labors of love, educated fans and scholars of music created phenomenal sheets and tabs, full transcriptions of their favored artists, scores, and bands.
Then came adtech, and when those goons rolled in, they just couldn't believe the opportunity that these idiots were wasting by doing all this work for free and just giving it awa... er- STEALING SALES from LEGITIMATE ARTISTS.
It usually started with campaigns of rude emails that threatened and insulted the site owner. "How could you do something as horrible as stealing the food out of the mouths of the artists you claim to love by competing with their official sheet music? You're lucky I found you first you first since you're such a small-fry, because if they knew what you were up to, they'd be disgusted by you, and their lawyers would sue you so hard, your grandkids would still be in litigation. Oh and by the way, your tabs are shit, your site is shit, and you're a shit person, so why don't you do everyone a favor and shut down?"
Then, once the site owner had a very predictable panic attack and crisis of faith, typically chronicled publicly on their home page, they'd be made an offer of a few hundred dollars. "Look, the only way out of this is to sell. We're connected, partnered with artists. Unlike you, you lowlife, you thief, we make money so we can PAY the artists. It's the only way to do this fairly. If you really think about it, you'll understand and do the Right Thing."
Then, if the site owner sold, the site would be stripped, frozen, and crammed with ads until it was a desiccated husk of itself, or else forwarded to its new home. Either way, there would be no more new tabs, no photos from tours, event updates, band recommendations, or community interaction, all waning value siphoned into some traffic-whoring cramscammer's [2] pocket.
And if they didn't sell, either the interaction left enough of a negative impression they they lost their passion, or they were legally harassed until they shut down, but only after they were scraped and hoovered up into trashy meta-sites like ultimate-guitar.
This is the slum web we live in today, but with more aggressive authoritarian identity management.
[2] I wonder if anyone can name the top two private forums for this prior 2005? Bonus points if you can name a person we all know today who was part of them!
If you’re serious about learning a piece, so you can perform it, you’ll want to transcribe it yourself, buy some better tabs, or buy sheet music. Or do some combination of those things. It’s not a problems with tabs themselves, but the general low quality tabs you see in ASCII art from random websites.
(For what it’s worth, I think it’s really easy to find sheet music for popular music. Sometimes too easy… I search for some pop song and get a couple dozen different arrangements for different instruments at different levels. The catch is that you have to pay a couple bucks.)