At face value yes, maybe. But low-quality content is increasingly associated with them, so the effective impact can easily get negative. I'd like to compare this to typical startup landing pages or doxygen documentations. Both can be spotted from a mile a way and are strongly correlated with padded and low quality content.

It isn't, because people associate these kinds of pictures with low-effort auto-generated clickbait and scams.

"people" as in "some people on HN"? Because I think as broader audience wouldn't necessarily mind or associate those images with scams.