The Phoenician Alphabet

Assyrian Lion and Duck weight inscriptions, from "On the Assyrian and Babylonian Weights, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland," 1856 Public domain

The Phoenicians were great ship-builders, sailors and textile experts. But they're most known for developing the alphabet that many modern alphabets are descended from. What drove a merchant culture to switch from cuneiform to a new writing system?