I went down that rabbit hole too and actually improved myself. I recommend Juggler (old school), Austen Summers and AttractionGym (Dutch). I would still recommend to use your common sense though. Not everything they say is good advice but I find them giving quite good advice while not being toxic (most of the time).
Though what helped me most was a mix of being more assertive, meditation and a strong sense of playfulness.
I always went the improv route, so while I read a lot of mainstream pickup stuff back then, I was too lazy to use it. Also, when it was clearly mean then I didn’t do it either (such as negging). It was fun to get some skill in being cocky and funny, but ultimately I fell in love with being playful. Communicating that way is so much fun, and it’s fun to go balls to the wall creative. Yep, I am in love with a communication style and way of looking at the world. So there’s that (I also was in love with learning Italian for a while). But my default mode is looking at the world in an analytical and data-driven/empirical way (while not noticing my irrationality).
The more reasonable dating coaches are still out there. They simply aren’t part of the mainstream advice.
The current mainstream advice about dating sucks. Though, to be fair: the mainstream pickup artists from back in the day also sucked. It’s a lot like mining: you dig through a lot of advice that is plain dirt so you can find the gems of advice that are sparsely scattered around the dirt.
I gave some dating advice to some HN’ers. If anyone wants some, feel free to message me. My email is in my profile.
I am married nowadays (after a few relationships).
What I do find interesting is: I can turn this part of myself off and then no woman sees me. Mostly because I lack initiative and look at the world too seriously. It’s handy because I never get into weird situations like a certain woman liking me at work, for example. It also helped when I didn’t know how to break off contact with someone who I knew wasn’t for me.