Chess.com ratings have massively deflated since 2020

'the other half goes down' ...
but wouldn't that mean in that case that the overall average remains about the same?
It might be helpful to have a reference point.
In the most classic form of rated chess - namely top level over the board chess at slow tournament time controls ... a 3000 rating continues to be elusive.
As in very. Nobody has such a rating. Or ever had such.
Right?

Very few players get to a 2800 FIDE rating.
Have these top standard ratings 'inflated' over the years?
Maybe somewhat but I'm inclined to think that the top 1% of players has gotten stronger as compared with decades past.
There's a larger population base of players - and much more information available to them and far greater tournament convenience and availability.
There's debates about what would happen if players like Morphy and Capablanca were brought forward in time at their primes.
Sure they would do well. Because of immense and exceptional talent.

But there's a larger group of comparable top strength players now.
That could mean that the numbers go up. Has meant that.
A longer and wider gap between top and bottom strength.
(analagous to voltage and amperage)
That's different from 'inflation' of rating.

Hikarus rating is a sign of deflation. The fact that it is going up is not that important. It is important how fast it is going up. You can clearly see that it grows very fast until 2020. From 2020 to 2024 the growing rate goes down. Of course Hikaru is not representative because he is better than almost everyone and he will play against weaker players almost every time. So while his rating goes up, the rating of a 2000 might stay the same or even go down.

If lower ratings are going down but higher ratings are staying steady, I guess one possibility is that stronger players are getting better at consistently crushing weaker players.

Maybe this is because they play weaker players more now online than they would have done in the past in tournaments?

ratings have massively deflated

In one of the posts I wrote I explained why

The internet seems to give conflicting information.
Like this: The highest FIDE ratings of all time?
OPEN. Carlsen, Magnus. 2830.
WOMEN. Hou, Yifan. 2632.
JUNIORS. Praggnanandhaa R. 2747.
GIRLS. Assaubayeva, Bibisara. 2472.
(yes Bibi)
But another source indicates Kasparov achieved 2851 FIDE at one time.
These are the real chess ratings. But there's that 'conflict' ...

your info is false, Magnus is 2830 at the moment, his peak FIDE rating is 2882 which is the highest in history

Its not 'my info'.
I already commented that the two figures were in conflict and you're adding a thrid figure.
Its not about me. Its subjects being discussed.

Point: Nobody has ever achieved a 2900 FIDE rating.
But you'll see people here who don't have half that strength achieve a 3000+ 'Tactics Rating' ...

Regarding rapid and blitz ratings - there's such ratings online - and such ratings over the board.
Right?
A player with 'fast connection' is likely to score higher and also beat strong players at speed chess or other fast chess time controls because of that connection speed that flags or handicaps other players ...

I also suspect there has been some deflation in rating recently. That necessarily doesn't mean you will have less player with 3000+. It's just The Gauss Bell is getting wider, but shorter. Only the constructor in charge of the chesscom Bell can confirm this. He could use different algorithms and coefficients to change whatever the shape of the Bell he likes. He can construct that one where Hikaru goes to 6000+ rating while a 2200 player remain in the same rating range without their level of play changed. It is adjustable.

I play chess way to late lowering my elo

In 2019, the average blitz rating was around 850. Now it's around 650. Take that information how you will.

P.S. Leaderboards do not include players who haven't played games in the past 90 days (unless that was changed and I didn't know)

I don't understand chess.com rating system too well, i heard it was called glickoRD and checked some wiki papers about it but.. after seeing all those formulas and things, obvious question raised in my mind.. "why?" why was it necessary? to have a seperate rating system..

new systems bring new problems with them naturally, now inflation deflation things occured, is this a side effect of glicko? how to overcome.. lots of questions

There's lots of different kinds of ratings.
FIDE slow over the board tournament ratings appear to be the bedrock of all ratings ...
but the USCF also has such ratings and there's something called Elo ratings.
And there's chess.com ratings ...
Good coaches will often tell their students to not concern themselves much about ratings. Or even at all.
On the other hand - ratings are an important part of the game.