The problem is already there, believing that there are things to cross off on a to-do list and will generally attract girls, as if they were a homogeneous group that shares a common rulebook to follow.
The only rule to follow is: treat people as people, as human beings, be respectful, be genuine and honest. That's the only foundation to have (even for friendships amongst men), from there one needs to figure out how to be themselves, and that's the whole issue, this is not easy, it doesn't come with a step-by-step framework, telling someone "just be yourself" is the most vague guidance to get, you can only know how to do it after you've done it, after you've found yourself and are comfortable being it.
These men are trying to shortcut this to get sex, that's all to it, instead of doing the work which takes time and effort, they try these little rules told by other men about what women want: you need to have a good job/salary, you need to dress like X or Y, you should be nice, etc., but they follow these with the expectation of having sex, and get frustrated when they feel they "followed all the rules" and get nothing in return.
Does it suck to learn who you are, how to present that to someone you are attracted while being respectful but sexy at the same time? Yes, it does suck, it takes time, it takes effort, it requires knowledge of yourself, but if you want a fulfilling relationship, even if just sexual, you kinda need this wisdom to find someone.
There are no shortcuts, all the shortcuts will lead to dissatisfaction at some point.
Unfortunately, like much wisdom, it's not something someone can pass down to you, you can hear all of that and still it will take tons of experience to actually ingrain that wisdom, desperately lonely men trying the rulebook do not have the patience to gain that experience and just keep bumbling around, becoming angrier in the process, which takes them further away from their goal of finding emotional/sexual connection.
In the end they blame women, because they think "I've done everything right", and that's the trap: thinking you followed the "right" rules and still got nothing, so there's nothing wrong with them but with others.
At the end of the day, those people want to have an understanding of what is going on and reassuring that they are not a failure compared to their ancestors, but a "work-in-progress", especially when nobody actually encourages, pushes them on or provides guidance. Of course, one must still walk the journey, but you're not exactly helping.
I don't know where you are in life, but I hope you're in a good position, having achieved your goals. The problem is that you don't really want to understand the hardships that people are going through, even if you gone through them yourself at some point. I know I did become less empathetic to people until I got back into the same shoes.
Another problem is that no one really offers a good advice. "No more Mr.Nice guy" is a book that attempts to read too much into people's motivation and seems to see everyone as an entitled narcissist. The only good thing that came out of it is some small guidelines in which direction to move and some encouragement along the way. But I still hate the fact that it pushed me into becoming less kind and more cynical towards the others, something that I'm trying to fix in myself.
Anyhow, if the solution to the problem was easy, you'd expect that the world would have corrected itself. Maybe there is some underlying situation going on, that we are conveniently oblivious to?
The problem is that they're trying to get things that "work". The thing they need to do is to throw all of that out, and to want to be with women because they like women. If the women themselves are secondary to their goal, then the women are not going to be very interested in it.
A lot of dating advice for men is women trying to explain how they feel about people who are larger, stronger, and think that they have some sort of right to sex.
So yeah, people treat dating like a meat market. It's unfortunate, and it is exacerbated by cultural trends, but I generally think it is unavoidable for people who live in an environment with a lot of other people they're not immediately familiar with, which is a majority of us.
Any given day, hey, maybe I feel like being treated like a piece of meat, but thinking I owe you sex in exchange for your being "nice" or "cheerful" is dangerous.