First and foremost, I would just like to mention that not everyone wants to improve at chess. Some may roll their eyes in disgust, but not wanting to improve might actually be okay! There are a few people who just enjoy playing (usually bullet or blitz) and have no intention on improving their game because they recognize how much effort and time it takes to improve and they judge it not worth it for them; there is a sense of acceptance and just playing for fun instead of improving and that is their decision, so this under-rated reaction is actually not as bad as it sounds.
With that out of the way, I think the better question to ask would be:
"Why wouldn't you want to improve?" Similarly, "Why can't you enjoy chess casually AND put the time in to work on your game?"
This second category is where most chess players fall into I think. Some players have dreams of becoming a titled player or something, but I think most strong chess players are merely hobbyists who put a ton of time working on a game they love and love improving at. Learning is part of the journey and part of the experience as well as part of the fun!
As for my personal attitude for chess. I love it as a game. It is a hobby of mine I've gotten good at because of how much time and effort I've put into it, but it is nowhere near life-consuming and I am also good at many other hobbies of mine. Some arguably even more so than chess.
Some examples (but there are many more) would be me getting into playing NL Holdem (poker), my golf (as I've been golfing since age 3, yes I started out young on the putting green) and naturally my schooling takes a lot of my time as I'm currently a college (university) student majoring in psychology.
If you are willing to put the time into improving at chess, I think you will be surprised at how much progress you can make long-term if you take things step by step and just keep learning even in a fairly casual manner.
Once way you can improve casually is to implement chess opening principles into your game. This is especially powerful because it does NOT require any specific opening theory or line memorization to get a playable position in most cases:
https://www.chess.com/blog/KeSetoKaiba/opening-principles-again
p.s. I consider myself to play chess only for fun and I play it as casually as I play minigolf, but then again - I told you I was a golfer 
For my chess it is greatly about challenging myself and testing my abilities against others, but it is also about casually having fun; those two can paradoxically be one in the same!
Hi,
I'm bit over 100 elo chessplayer, and I just had good laugh when I googled chess.com 100 elo players to find about how people think they lose on purpose, or "sandbagging" their ranking. And that got me thinking about how seriously people play.
I play mostly 3 min games because they are casual enough for me to play during day and dont impact other aspects of my life. My attitude towards chess and chess.com is similar to any game. I can play it for fun and still learn but not stress about ranking or rating. I also understand that this sort timeframe-gameplay and reactive type of playing is mostly just either being aggressor, or reacting opponents movements and not having time to analyze and play deeper movements as beginner. I used to be super-serious national esport representative but with family and work, my gaming has become more of a past time to relax.
I find it amusing that this game has such voiced or biased opinion about studying the moves and positions to get better, ie reading books about playing instead of just playing. Thats why I wanted to make this to ask if theres active members of community who likes to learn, but still play casually enough not to care about elo or ranking. I might time to time check youtube videos and listen (not watch) few hints or basic principles when-how-why's to get better. Or just play game and try really stupid stuff and see that its not working at all and lose. I generally still watch game report after the match and see suggested best moves or plunders so I might be able to recognize and avoid them in future.
Also another question I wanted to ask if theres any etiquettes for chess.com games? I lose a lot of games to time, and I dont want to ruin anyone elses fun. Do people care how they win, like do people care about the experience of chess match how they position and overtake opponent and kinda at the crucial moment they get win when opponent is defeated because timer went to 0?
TLDR; Do you guys play for fun, like you might play online spider solitaire, minigolf or casual CS:GO? Or is more about challenging yourself and testing your abilities against other people?