Yes, they are Gate keeping big time. your rating will always be +- 200 points once your established and non provisional player. Ive been researching this for years and I know for a fact chess.com on ALL levels of play 800-2200 keeps you around your current chess.com rating. They do this so you keep playing and trying to get better etc. I went on lichess back in the day and got all my ratings over 2000 for bullet rapid and blitz and then QUIT lichess and moved on to chess.com. My friend did the same exact thing and said lichess is a joke. Chess.com on the other hand makes sure you win and then you lose. I watch 2100 rated players make the same blunders as the 1800s and play exactly the same openings and same tactics all the time. Theres 1600s on chess.com could beat a 2000+ player no problem!
To be Frank, everytime im about to cross like 1900 I get paired with someone with 156k games and their chess.com INSIGHTS shows that they win 90% of their games against my opening i usually play as black or white! And this happens over and over again untill guess what? Im back to my normal rating.... its so frustrating and makes me do more puzzles and pay chess.com premium so i can review my games LMAO>
Yes, it's easy to make the system pair you witn an opponent who is good at opening you're bad at. I don't know if that happens. But it would be easy to organise.
I'm at different level, I meet 200-rated players who play for years, have like 5k games and their play is strong, not novice level definitely.
Try copying your game PGN (share button), change your and opponent's Elo in the rating tags to something like 2800:
[WhiteElo "2789"]
[BlackElo "2789"]
then in Learn-Analysis add the game back
Review results change. "Game rating" would be higher, good/bad moves distribute differently, you might get more excellent moves but also more blunders.
Now think what is this manipulation for. Why do they want to tell players that their play is weak when it's not. To a player that is rated higher by them they say different things. Why. That's not a question.