We’re thread drifting a bit here, but I will echo what one of our trad music tutors said, “There is no right or wrong way of learning - everyone has their own way of doing it”, and I would totally agree with that. Speaking for myself, I learned to read music at a very early age, so that was my modus operandi for learning new pieces, and later committing them to memory, and discarding the sheet music.
When I started going to mixed instrument classes, the method of learning was by ear, so I made myself do it, but still drawing heavily on all that music theory I had learned as a youngster, e.g, that note is a 4th/5th above the last one, or that run of notes is a scale. What you very rarely see in sheet music of trad tunes, as compared with classical scores, is any phrase marks, dynamics indicators, accents, pauses, ornamentation, etc. You can learn that or make up your own by listening to recordings, but not a good idea to copy them slavishly.
But I will never agree with anyone who says learning by ear is the ONLY way, especially now my hearing is seriously compromised. On the other hand, fully respect those who play brilliantly but have never learned to read music.