This is correct. I've played many thousands of games online and have run into obvious cheaters fewer than 5 times, and in those cases it is obviously obvious.
If somebody is cheating so stealthily, why do I care? Their rating will reflect whatever cheating they stealthily do. Remember: If the cheater won every single game, they would be caught immediately, so if their rating is around mine, then whatever cheating they are doing roughly makes them a player of my skill level. It really makes no difference to me if the person I'm playing is actually weaker and cheating to simulate my skill level or actually my skill level.
And from their perspective, what is the point? If you are a 1500 player and can cheat to be an 1800 player, what are you gaining from that? Wouldn't you rather play other people that are your skill level? And if you are a beginner (<1000) that is trying to pretend to be a higher rated player, you just won't have enough understanding of chess to pull it off stealthily.
The cheating thing is just not a major issue for casual online chess.
Would it be possible for you to describe what it feels like to encounter an obvious cheater in chess? Is it simply who quickly they move, the strength of their moves, both, and/or something else?
The way to detect an obvious cheater is when somebody rated like 300-400+ rating points below you, a matchup which generally only occurs in tournaments or the like (normally you wouldn't be paired down to such a large extent), plays incredibly well and beats you. And then you do computer analysis and you see they played near flawlessly. You look at the move timing and make really complicated and deep moves instantly. Then you look at their game history and see they played their last few games nearly perfectly. Then you report them and your rating points are refunded a few minutes later.
Lower rated non-chess players, the kind that are most likely to cheat, can't just pretend to be higher rated people because they don't know what moves are suspicious and which ones aren't. And if you think they'll just cheat for the first few moves and then turn the computer off... it really just doesn't work as well. If they actually have no idea what they are doing they'll still lose, and it's super suspicious anyways based on move timing and computer analysis.
And to my original point, if I were an 1800 player and wanted to sneakily cheat to be a 2000 player, I probably could pull it off, because that is close enough to my skill level that I could pretend. Maybe by using an opening book to make sure I'm getting great positions out of the opening. Maybe by only turning the computer on during certain key positions. But again, if I did this consistently, I'd get a 2000 rating and now I'm going to be matched up against 2000 rated players, and from their perspective I'm just a 2000 player. And what have I gained? I now have to cheat to even be competitive in a casual chess game, whereas if I just had my true rating I could just play normally which would be easier and more fun. This is why sneaky cheating just isn't very common, because the only people capable of doing it really have no incentive to do it. The only people who think cheating would be fun are the people who are easiest to detect.
If somebody is cheating so stealthily, why do I care? Their rating will reflect whatever cheating they stealthily do. Remember: If the cheater won every single game, they would be caught immediately, so if their rating is around mine, then whatever cheating they are doing roughly makes them a player of my skill level. It really makes no difference to me if the person I'm playing is actually weaker and cheating to simulate my skill level or actually my skill level.
And from their perspective, what is the point? If you are a 1500 player and can cheat to be an 1800 player, what are you gaining from that? Wouldn't you rather play other people that are your skill level? And if you are a beginner (<1000) that is trying to pretend to be a higher rated player, you just won't have enough understanding of chess to pull it off stealthily.
The cheating thing is just not a major issue for casual online chess.