> intention behind them was to contribute to readability

This is provably wrong. See https://peps.python.org/pep-3107/#use-cases

Have you read the whole section?

> Documentation for parameters and return values ([23])

> Let IDEs show what types a function expects and returns ([16])

> For example, one library might use string-based annotations to provide improved help messages, like so:

  def compile(source: "something compilable",
    filename: "where the compilable thing comes from",
    mode: "is this a single statement or a suite?"):