From my backtest the only marginally profitable move I could find was to buy the R2 breakout or short the S2 breakout. (This is NOT a trading system, trade at your own risk folks.)
it was widely talked about by professional writers and talkers. They claimed that people used those things in olded days. I don't trust what professional writers and talkers say
To the best of my knowledge Peter Bain was the guy who truly popularized these pivot points. I bought his DVD course (10 or 15 years ago) but couldn't backtest it because some trading rules (like trendline breakouts or MACD divergences) were highly subjective. You can see the first part of the course on Youtube (see video below). All in all an interesting course from a charismatic trader.
I still use them on the daily & weekly charts. Kinda like a road map for potential price moves. I think it is interesting to see the price react around the pivots. Like when the close lands right on tomorrows pivot.
Pivots work but traders want perfection. Never to lose. The only holy grail is knowing there is no holy grail. Circular I know. But what is even more circular is searching, searching for the next best thing.