I don't think the images are a problem. Like the other commenter said i think it's the use of whitespace. The story feed seems quite narrow compared to hn. There's lots of deadspace to either side. I think you could increase the usage of space while not compromising on the images.

Please too, put the subscribe thing at the bottom of the page, not the middle. That just reminded me of a midpage banner add. It disrupted the reading flow very obviously.

It's a terrible spot for it.

You can keep the images, but just reduce all the white space. Also, I'd get rid of the cookie banner, as I didn't see cookies?

Thanks, someone else mentioned the cookies as well. Will have a look into whether I can remove that, as I hate the consent myself.

I think making the images square (or squircles) instead of round, and a little bit smaller would allow you to reclaim quite a lot of whitespace.