No it isn’t, because it’s not intended to be literal. Instead, it’s shorthand for saying, “certifications have approximately negligible positive utility compared to learning alternatives, and net negative utility after time and monetary investments are considered compared to alternatives.”

It’s like functions in the local versus global scale: for the most part, a certification is has an imperceptible impact on overall career trajectory. To abuse terminology a bit, of available opportunities with similar time and monetary costs, certifications are not among the those capable of changing the global scale of your career.

I’ve been responsible for making hiring decisions in infosec positions. I consider certifications like CISSP to be a weakly negative signal in an inexperienced candidate and no signal either way in an experienced candidate. It’s useless to say that certain things have value if their value is absolutely dominated by similarly accessible alternatives. I know more than a handful of people who have started successful infosec careers with no certification or degree because they invested in themselves in more meaningful ways that the really well paying companies care about.

True, but there are a lot of bullshit certifications out there that either 1.) vastly over project the actual knowledge people glean from it (CISSP and friends) or 2.) are unrecognized to the point that they're useless.