No, you need to understand tactics better. Stop playing fast time controls until your daily rating climb 1500.
Invest your time solving basic tactics and beginners strategy. You have a diamond membership and chess.com have a nice program schedule to follow for beginners. Have patience and time eventually will come to your side.
Understanding how to become better in chess is a nice procedure.
The fast time controls are always so tempting... but thank you all for your help!
Beware of those false prophets disguised as lambs but they are wolves lurking in the chess darkness! 
How do you know he's getting a pawn development advantage? He may just be weakening his pawn structure chasing the Knight around. Play daily and rapid 15 | 10, not Blitz, until you get used to thinking where your Knight should go next! Do computer analysis as that will tell you where the Knight should have gone next. It will also tell you when your opponent has made weak pawn moves and should make you happier about "standard development".
So here's my problem. I'm reading articles, looking at grandmaster games, playing and playing and playing... but when I go to apply principles like "develop your pieces ASAP" and "generally don't move a piece more than once during the opening," my opponents always end up doing something like just advancing pawns to threaten whatever I move out, and we end up playing "chase the knight around the board" while he gets this great pawn development advantage.
So... what am I missing, here? Why is it that following the 'basic principles for openings' always leads me into really disadvantageous positions with all my pieces running away from a rapidly advancing pawn structure?
Am I really supposed to abandon developing my pieces and play some crazy closed pawn structure every game?