Perhaps someone with a linguistics background can chime in but my (layperson) understanding is that many writing systems start out pictographic and evolved over

Perhaps someone with a linguistics background can chime in but my (layperson) understanding is that many writing systems start out pictographic and evolved over time, become syllabaries, then eventually alphabets. The Chinese writing system represents an incomplete transition. Egyptian represents a mixed but mostly complete transition, as by the late third period their writing system was mostly based on the sounds of the symbols, not the literal concepts they originally meant (e.g.: using a snake symbol for the "s" sound). Middle period writings are often a mix of all three: some symbols used for their literal meaning, some symbols used to represent syllables, and some for their sound. Sometimes (but not always) there were markings next to the symbols to indicate what "mode" you should read them in. All YMMV of course, I'm not an expert. I try to avoid being too euro-centric as it is easy for me to claim alphabets are superior because that's what I know, but it does seem like memorizing abstract rules and a small set of letters is easier than memorizing thousands of characters. It is certainly easier to deal with by machine (whether that be a typewriter, a terminal, or designing a modern OpenType font).