In the USA - As someone who makes a living with photography, I use watermarks for one simple reason - when it comes to protecting my work where it counts - in court. it provides greater financial rewards when I successfully sue the infringer.

I have had my work infringed more than 2500 times. I was able to sue in more than 2000 of those cases and I recovered money in about 70% of those cases.

If you read the statutes (https://www.copyright.gov/title17/) then you will find that in the penalty phase of any Copyright infringement case, proving the defendant knew the work's author and that the work was protected by Copyright, then the damages can be three times higher than if the defendant can argue that they didn't know the work was protected or who owned it.

So I hope that those who read your article will ignore your advice if they seek to financially profit from their creative works.