"This strategy used to be a lot more prevalent a few decades ago"

I thought the whole point of the article was that Valve started this less than 30 years ago.

I find it frustrating when the writers don't have any idea what things mean... They just put it in to be weird and intriguing and mysterious. When the payoff is just whatever the writers make up 3 seasons later, it feels so much more shallow.

The reason I love Dark so much is that they had all three seasons mapped out from the beginning. Constant revelations that explained but also revealed deeper complexity, story notes that were foreshadowed in the earliest episodes, and developments that were unexpected but that in hindsight were inevitable. And after they told their 3-season story, it was done. No possibility of the story getting stretched out for another season, because it was complete. Every question answered, every story line completed, every mystery solved.

The closure that the viewer gets at the end of the amazingly complex but complete plot makes the entire work of art immensely satisfying.

No other show I've encountered comes close to it, which makes them that much more frustrating in contrast.