Well, no it doesn't short-term. However, it may result in more people in the long run. Take me for example. My TV was always being used, so I couldn't play smash on it (I was a melee guy at the time, never heard of competitive smash in any game). I remembered having played nintendo 64 games on the computer at a friend's place 5 years previous, so I decided to give it a try. I played on the computer vs cpu's for many months. I then found out (don't know how) that pj64 could actually go online, so I decided to give that a try, and then, slowly but surely, I played against people online more and more. Later, I discovered smashboards, and... well, 3 months later, I discovered the 64 section on smashboards (lol). Then I found out that there actually was a competitive scene. So I tried it out, lurked the 64 boards, and slowly began becoming competitive. I then decided to start posting, and... well...
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=215730&page=8
But since then, I've played more and more, and am one of the more competitive 64 players in the community (doesn't mean good or bad... just more competitive).
So... just because someone doesn't start playing new people online now doesn't mean they won't come back later.
...
If that's too long for people to read, summary: New people may decide not to play on servers for now, but later they might come back and play new people.