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I agree with the sentiment, but "stock photos" are not a problem.

They add visual interest and allow the reader to quickly see what the article is about. Having a good stock photo with a blog post drastically increases the number of clicks.

Yes they can be used incorrectly, but that's true of anything.

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I found it particularly ironic given he specifically used the example of Harry Potter, "a pretty thick book" being only "about 500kb of text", despite the fact that the actually book (the physical object he specifically picks as his metaphor) has pictures at the start of every chapter, not to mention the custom fonts and typesetting. You would need way more than 500kb to represent the actual book.

I won't read articles on cybersecurity if I don't see a either a bad guy in a hoodie hunched over a laptop, or (even better) a neon blue padlock in front of a Matrix style screen saver. Those are the dead give-away that an article is worth your time, otherwise it's really anybody's guess as to the content quality.

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