As someone who spend a fair amount of time on play money tables before getting back to
real money poker, I will say no. For sure you do learn SOMETHING, but even a 2NL cash game different.
My motivation back in the day was, that I had family responsibilities and a strained financial situation, so I found it irresponsible to "gamble" with real money. But you can play cash games for 2$, and losing even several buyins in these is hardly going to matter to your overall situation. Its still essentially the price of nothing.
Also 2NL games are very soft, so if you have any kind of talent and take it serious, you can beat them after a while and actually win money or at least play for free. So in my opinion, if you are serious about
online poker, make a deposit of for instance 60$, let that be your bankrool and play some 2NL cash games.
If you dont even have 60$ to spare, then dont spend time playing poker. Find a (second) job instead and earn some salary, so you can afford to make the deposit and other things, you like to do in your life as well.