400 elo and 600 are exactly the same.
My theory is that many people start out very bad at chess, go down to really low elo in the beginning due to the initial high elo loss per game, then these people get better and better at the game, but get stuck around that elo because you gain so little per game.
Ive played at around 400 elo and i can confidently say it was harder than the people Ive been playing at 550 elo.