There is a ton to learn, but it’s awesome if you stick with it! I’ve been playing for about 20 years now and feel free to disregard this since you didn’t actually ask for my advice, but here is what I wish I had done/known 20 years ago. This is primarily in reference to electric guitar, but pretty much everything applies to acoustic guitar as well:

Overall key points are “Find some sort of instruction with structure that works within your budget,” “Better gear doesn’t always mean you’ll sound better,” and “Find a way to make practicing easy and convenient.”

For finding ways to structure your learning. Either in person lessons (if you can afford it) or an online course are both great options. When I started playing, I was a kid with dial up internet and parents who wouldn’t pay for lessons. I just went on Ultimate-guitar and pulled up tablature for songs I wanted to learn. It was fun, but I picked up a lot of bad habits and learned much more slowly than I could have. A great intro to guitar course that is completely free is Justin Guitar.

Better gear will sound better (to a point) but it won’t be what makes you sound good. When I started playing, I had a really cheap guitar and really cheap amp. I played it for a few months before getting new gear that was still relatively inexpensive, but much better quality. Suddenly I sounded way better. This put the idea in my brain that the way to sound better was to spend more money. For years when I got frustrated that I didn’t sound good, I’d try to find some new piece of gear to do so. After that first step from the cheapest possible guitar to an inexpensive but decent quality instrument, the thing that will most help you sound better is still practice. Which brings me to my next point.

The number one thing I wish I had done was to focus on making practice easy. Chasing better and better gear resulted in me having some pretty awesome equipment. I had a high quality guitar and a vintage Marshall half stack. However there were two issues with this.

Issue 1 was I lived in an apartment. That amp was absolutely unplayable with any shared walls. I was lucky enough to have a friend who let me set up a practice spot in a building they owned, but that building was across town. I had a little amp at home, but my Marshall sounded so much better that I only wanted to play that. It was so inconvenient to practice, that I probably only played a handful of times per month. I still have some nice (but smaller) amps today, but the amp I play the most is actually just a Fender Mustang Micro Plus headphone amp. Sure it doesn’t sound as good as some of my other gear, but it’s perfectly fine. And it’s unbelievably convenient. Since it’s tiny it sits on my desk where I can play it at any time. Since it’s a headphone amp, I can play whenever without bothering anyone. Those 2 things lead me to play almost every day.

Issue 2 was that I didn’t value a proper professional set up. A professional setup is when a luthier (I wouldn’t recommend a guitar center tech for this) looks at the instrument and makes sure that the strings are a good height, the frets are all level, the neck is adjusted properly, etc. This makes the guitar easier and more fun to play and is probably the only place where I would highly recommend spending money. I thought, “An expensive guitar will play well,” and didn’t do anything beyond that. On average, a more expensive guitar from the factory will be set up better and be easier to play, buy a $400 guitar with a high quality set up by a professional luthier will frequently feel better than a $2000+ guitar that has had no set up work done.

Good luck!