Blender's node-based compositor has comprehensive video sequencing and post-processing features.

Releases are made every ~3 months.

The trick with Blender is to get used to its usage philosophy, as it keeps consistent through all the application. Once you get it, every feature or addition is learnt naturally, almost effortlessly.

You don't have to switch between software when you want to do different things. Because modeling, sculpting, composting, video editing etc can all be done in blender.

There's a huge community to help you get started immediately.

It offers a round solution (it covers many areas and professional fields) for a freelancer, for free, constantly updated, very polished, and allowing high quality results that clients do require. After some learning, it becomes very useful for professional work.

Support lots of modern 3D formats including DAE and FBX - ideal for game developers.

Blender runs the Cycles path tracing engine under the hood. Cycles is a very powerful rendering engine capable of full path tracing (light fall off, caustics, volumetrics). It is mostly compatible with OpenCL and CUDA rendering, and is implementing mycropolygon displacement features. The upcoming release has a viewport engine called EEVEE whereby you can see and interact with your work in render mode in real time!

Blender is licensed under the GPL. Some Blender modules such as the Cycles rendering engine are licensed under the Apache 2.0 license.

Blender provides a full rigging system, and automates animation by interpolating between keyframe positions.

Blender embeds Python 3, which can be used to write add-ons, tools, extend the interface, rig characters and automate tasks.

Good keyboard shortcuts for everything. Keep your left hand on the keyboard and your right hand on the mouse.

Although Blender's 3d painting and sculpting tools (mostly painting) are not at par with specialized software like Substance Painter, ZBrush, or Mari, it is more than capable of getting most jobs done if the user takes the time to learn and understand it.