I think online matchmaking has absolutely destroyed people's ability to feel like they're good at any game.
Like you'll never be a big fish in a small pond. If you played as much as you currently do but could only play with people local to you, you'd be the best person you know at this thing. And that's a really good feeling. But you'll never get that feeling, because you should really be grinding past whatever plat 3 is in order to not suck.
Conversely you'll never be a small fish in a big pond. If you could only play with people local to you and they all played much more than you, you'd be the worse person you know at this thing. And that's a really bad feeling. That gets people to quit games.
The big fish eat all the small fish until the big fish are the only ones left.
I have a triple-digit-hour play time and I could barely get out of Bronze. I can't really explain why, but my brain just doesn't mesh with it, skill-wise. It's still a lot of fun though (otherwise I wouldn't have spent so long playing it!). In fact, being so bad at it somehow made it more enjoyable - it's not often I allow myself to be bad at something.
I'd rank myself as "unusually good" at Mario Kart, which is obviously a very different game, but it surprises me that I have such a wide skill gap between the two games.
I'm decent at Rocket League and sit between Plat III and Diamond I. It seems our metrics are slightly different :) I've found these ranks are the natural breaking point between what I could classify as "sweaty" players and "casuals." I've never been interested in going much further.
It's very weird seeing RL discussed on HN - worlds are colliding! But, yes, this is good advice. Also consider playing 1v1. I'm Diamond I-II there. It's a lot of fun, and probably the only mode where turning off the chat doesn't put you at a disadvantage.
Like you'll never be a big fish in a small pond. If you played as much as you currently do but could only play with people local to you, you'd be the best person you know at this thing. And that's a really good feeling. But you'll never get that feeling, because you should really be grinding past whatever plat 3 is in order to not suck.