alt Hacker NewsThe advantage of the em dash is that it can replace pretty much any other punctuation mark and work well enough. Quite often I'll be trying to remember whether to use a semicolon or a colon to connect two parts of a sentence, and then I decided I can't be bothered and just use a dash instead - it'll be fine.
I think this is the real reason for its (pre-LLM) ubiquity - it's a really flexible, versatile bit of punctuation, whereas most of its siblings have a more specific meaning or purpose.
The best advice is often: Use a dot and start a new sentence. The best writers use very short sentences in a row and simple words. They flow easily and do not break reading. This works particularly well in science and for difficult topics.