Is the rating system flawed?

It seems that there are a LOT of 800~ rated players that are actually 1500+ but are indefinitely stuck in the 800s because they're just playing others who are stuck there at the same rating, making it basically impossible to ever improve unless you improve to a 2000+ player

Hmm. Chess.com posts graphs of rating distributions in the leaderboards.

The one for rapid shows 2.6 million players rated in the 800's.

Out of 59.4 million.

So , if we accepted your theory-- that some of those 800-rated players are stuck there-- at least 56.8 million players aren't stuck there.

Interesting. I just assumed that this was because I am currently seeing a lot of good players on their way up.

I routinely beat bots at 1400 and I've taken tests that peg me at around that as well. I only started on the rapid chess on this site a couple of days ago and flew from 400 to 800-900 pretty quickly but it's bogging down because I am seeing styles that I haven't really encountered before. That being said, I'm pretty new to the game - really only picked it up a year ago and haven't taken any lessons or done any drills.

You started your new account at 1600 and then managed to win your first game. That boosted your rating temporarily above 1700. Since then, you have been steadily declining but haven't played a lot of games. Your rating is now already 1467.

Give it another few dozen games and you will be likely to continue dropping towards your former 1250 rating.

It may apply to any rating range, where people in a given range may be better than the range they are in, and if you are constantly playing those players at a high enough frequency, then even if YOU are better than what your rating reflects, it does not mean you will ever get out of said range. The people I'm playing in the 1200 range are significantly easier than those I played in the 800s where i was stuck for thousands of games from a previous account

No, if your rating is 800 you are 800. I am 1500 and I'm sure that I have a lot higher skill than 800s who aren't sandbagging. That's why if you look in insights for the 1500s, they beat 800-rated players about 90% of the time. It's not rigged, it's just a skill difference. If it were rigged then why have a rating at all?

I never suggested it was rigged nor was I suggesting players are sandbagging. I said "flawed".

My theory is not that there are 1500 rating players playing as 800s intentionally, but rather because they can't get out of the 800s because they are also playing against 1500 rating players who can't seem to get out of the 800 rating hole either so its an endless cycle. after closing my account that had 6000+ games and stuck in the 800s, i was able to climb out over 1000 easily and now the competition in the 1200 range is significantly easier than the competition in the 800s. That must mean something. No, I do not believe its rigged but a design flaw that allows such a thing to happen in the first place