At what level does study become necessary?

We all know that the most talented players can get by with very little study. But, for the rest of us, we hit a plateau in our rating progression without study.

For the average amateur who does not study openings or theory at all, at what rating level do you think studying becomes necessary to progress?

Note: This isn't a "How can I improve post." It's simply a hypothetical to encourage some discussion while I'm at work. :)

unless you are a prodigy, if you want to compete you will need to study whenever you are unsatisfied with the results you are getting. Sorry, there's just no way around it if you want to get better.

Well, using myself as an example:

I've known the rules of chess for about 8 years, and started playing actively over a year ago without studying openings or theory, and I'm having trouble progressing over 1300.

You won't get better at this game without some form of study, whether by reading books, watching videos, using computer learning tools or simply playing over your own completed games to see where you went wrong.

It isn't a rating level that determines when you should start studying.  It's recognizing you have a desire to play better, then choosing to do something about it.

There's no specific rating. But the longer you leave it without studying (and of course playing competitively over the board, that's vital) the more your bad habits that you'll develop will become ingrained, and the less effect studying will actually have when you eventually do it. 

It's fine if you want to enjoy chess as a hobby and never study. 

But if you're serious about improving you really can't afford to delay it.

I can relate, I've seemed to plateau around 1400.

On a side note: I wasn't really thinking about my own progression when constructing this discussion. It was more of a hypothetical question for the chess.com community.

In my opinion, I think for most players, 1400ish is probably the area when you start facing more players who make study a legitimate part of their game.