You are always playing real players in live and play chess, unless specifically challenging bots.
Premium and normal members have the same matchmaking, there is no difference in live games.
Obviously B1zmark's post was ironic, but are you sure about the second part? I was certainly under the impression that it aims to pair premiums together if possible, before widening the pairing parameters if needed?
I do remember hearing about this as well. But it’s not really that big of a deal
what’s a “real person”, never heard of em