"For people whose effort looks like desperation."

I think we're having an inferential gap issue here. There is "High effort, no skill" and "Desperate." These look very similar. Then there's "Low effort, low skill," and "no desperation," which also look similar. These often result in a massive improvement over "High effort, no skill." I'd bet on many people seeing that improvement and thinking it's enough; maybe they're satisfied with their results, or maybe they don't realize that better results could be had. Hence, the proliferation of the meme.

Then, of course, there's deliberate effort, which requires actual skill. "High effort, high skill" probably delivers better results than "no effort, low skill," and this article seems to be a good example of that.