This is a good point. The banner image is something I've been doing on all my articles, and it's creating the wrong perception. I'm probably going to stop adding these. All my other content is software engineering related, and I've started adding more visual content like diagrams, screenshots, and YouTube videos. So I probably don't need to lean on the banner images anymore, and it seems like they're doing more harm than good!

Edit: I actually went ahead and removed the banner image from this post. Thank you for pointing out this signal!

Yeah agreed - Just as a future context I tend to close out of articles quickly if they have an AI generated image. Highly reccomend something like Unsplash or Comsos.so - They both have some brilliant visuals, especially public.work - cosmos.so/public-work

Even old archives are great to search for visuals and shows the passion that you've put in to the writing.