Casuals are Not Beginners

Just an opinionated observation, but there's zero acknowledgement or effort put in towards catering to casual players here. Playing matches on a google play app with less than 50k users is more rewarding of an experience, which is more important to casuals than ratings or intricate tactics and analyses.

I think it's due to unfair play and a wonky rating system, but regardless, the result is that it very quickly and permanently disincentivizes them from playing at all. We're not about to go studying 2 hour opening theory videos on youtube just to get better against "equally" rated opponents who all play the exact same style and engine-preferred openings. 

Rant over. Idk what the point of it was but-- I think maybe the site should build a casual matchmaking system that somehow takes this into consideration. The game will fade away sooner than later at this rate of hyper-precision and analysis taking over every single aspect of it's play.

Merry Late Christmas everyone 

I don't understand. Casual players are players who want to play the game of chess without worrying about losing points. But rated players are players who want to scale up and compete with people with their knowledge. It isn't unfair, because it depends on which type of player you are.

There's an option to play games that will have no bearing on rating. I play "casual" 1 minute bullet like so.

The hyper-competitive atmosphere can overwhelm anyone who just wants to enjoy the game.

I tried playing non rated games just to work on openings and experiment with different lines, and it wouldn't match with anyone, period point blank. Refreshed and closed browser, etc. Nothing lol. I'm casual like I said, I'll find my fun with the game either way.
Amit102022: No disrespect, but shush. Stop gaslighting. You look like an op.

If you really want to play completely unrated games with random people of potentially all skill levels, just log out of your account. You can still play games on the site, and you will get paired with almost no wait time. That's pretty much how I started.

The drawback to that strat is that you will be playing with random of people of potentially all skill levels, which will not help you test openings.

I am a casual player as well, and I find the rating system completely reasonable. It's based on wins/losses. You win, you gain points. You lose, you lose points. There are nuances to the system but they generally favor equalization. There is no conspiracy here. "Equal" ratings are literally equal, no quotes necessary.

I'm sure it depends on the elo range for the matchmaking. In lower elo matches? No they are ABSOLUTELY are not. I am regularly frustrated bouncing between complete beginners who blunder every other move, to the point I feel patronized being matched with them, and bad for them having to play against a much stronger player... to players 100 elo lower who play better than MOST of the 500-600's I've played.(regardless of any questions of fairplay)

Sorry but again, shush. This is again, a known issue. I'm not the only one who notices it.

all online ratings are casual

Hit me in the theory with that. Fair point-- UNTIL; cheating becomes rampant and affects the meta environment of commonly played styles opens, demographic volume by skill level, minimum vs maximum rating range differences being affected by algorithmic or practical circumstance such as wait times for opponent match up during low traffic times, etc.... 
In that sense, it is literally the farthest from casual it could POSSIBLY be. Especially when it's business casual. The players are the cashcrop here.

contexo

every chess.com player who only plays online is casual.
OTB players are not casual.

Fair point, to the extent that that the term "casual PLAYer", implies that the act of PLAYing the game, can be broadly umbrella described as "casual". The *game* and it's evolving positions are the subject to the adjective-- despite it being subject to the competitive temperaments between players. 
Idk, a little rambunctious smack talk and hyping up the game OTB is what makes it a social draw in the first place. Somewhere along the way, prim and propers just assumed "inherited" control over the slowly changing standards of all things intellectual; inevitably hard-lining unruly competitors out of any chance of being mentioned with their favorite equally skilled famous players. I do understand both sides of the dilemma, though. As a human advertisement for what "peak intellectual fitness" looks like, it's not necessarily a healthy message to send the majority of 95[ -4 on weekends] people;
"They're dirtier, raunchier, give even LESS ****'s than you, and they're smarter than 4 of you; this too... could NEVER BE YOU-- unless you groom and dress yourself to OUR [very curated for peak intellectual performance of course] liking."
It's not a privately controlled fortune 500 global consulting firm. Chess is representative of all cultures and all classes and all people of all or no wealth. What is acceptable and decent attire in the context of semi-formal events, should be the most they absolutely require. Just look sharp and represent yourself or class or whatever; as long as it's not "distracting"(LMAO),

You don't have to.

If your favorite content creator only makes videos about openings, find a new favorite. There are thousands of creators and quite a few of them are good.

The rest of your post I didn't understand at all. None of that made any sense to me. How can a matchmaking system be "casual"? What can be fairer and more friendly to casuals than pairing them with players of similar skill?

I've explained this pretty clearly in more than a few comments; 
You're gaslighting and framing it as a question? Like woah, what could be more effective at making you seem none-the-wiser to the flagrantly widespread issue that everyone who plays chess online knows about? 

Ayyyy, guys. Ignorance is bliss and that's fine. I'm not banging down doors to hand out Jesus pamphlets here. I'm sharing my own personal experience at my rating range. If that doesn't correlate with your experience, be thankful, and keep it moving. Don't hop on trying to gaslight critical opinions. Yall look like clowns.

No, you didn't. It all sounds gibberish to me, I can only guess what "the flagrantly widespread issue that everyone who plays chess online knows about" would be. Cheating? It's as good a guess as any.

Maybe you can join a club? People are really friendly to beginners.

Good. Studying opening "theory" at 300 would be a waste of time.

I'm not really trying to focus on the negatives, just propose possible positives. *They* are just a symptom indicative of the limitations of mass data analysis at scale, live 24/7. Algorithms must be employed to prioritize and deprioritize red flags at a rate that can make a dent in "their" numbers. I know chess.com stands to lose the most long term, if they can't contain the flood. They're between a rock and a hard place, so far as I can tell.

The reason low elos encounter the worst of them more frequently because they don't need to make 15 perfect engine moves in a row to beat a 3-500, just one or 2 perfect moves to take back advantage, and then just natural 95 iq logical sequences; blunders and all. Their stats are too fuzzy and indistinct from the vast mass of real human's data that falls into the lowest elo categories-- unskilled human players have the greatest instances of the greatest variety of different moves and positions, i.e. millions of people using any and all random positions-- analyzing this demographic of players is impossible without a sufficiently significant sample size primarily consisting of short-term longitudinal data of each individual player, to be constantly updated and reassessed in the moment during play. 
There's levels to it. They can actually be "side pooled" by the matchmaking algorithm, and paired with human players purposefully, if they want. But why would they want to?

I'd do it, then pair real human players whose style of playing produces sharp extremes in metric data points, across a wide variety of metric values. Then observe and collect the data quietly and try to keep it from being revealed for as long as possible. I'd want legal to be way ahead of potentially stealing biometric, device, and location information, to be used in perpetuity,

Casuals are the strongest people around.

Only thing is some don't quite know the rules, for example en passant capture.