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Rating should not start at 1500.

If someone wants to play on a chess site, where the resulting ratings closely follow those from otb US Fed. ratings then it is chess.com. Lichess offers a lot for free to enjoy without question. But regardless of the reasons, accurate ratings according to those obtained from otb is not one of them. My aim is not to provoke but rather to understand why, and I suppose no one can honestly explain it
> My aim is not to provoke but rather to understand why, and I suppose no one can honestly explain it

you are doing very badly then. again, it is easy to explain: following otb ratings is not the goal of lichess rating. the goal is to predict winning chances. lichess ratings are *very* accurate, and in my experience way more accurate than fide ratings, at least at the lower levels.
@Lachesis said in #21:
> My aim is not to provoke but rather to understand why, and I suppose no one can honestly explain it

Dude, I already answered the question: Prof. Glickman recommends 1500, so 1500 is recommended:
> If the player is unrated, set the rating to 1500 and the RD to 350. Set the player’s volatility to 0.06 (this value depends on the particular application).

http://www.glicko.net/glicko/glicko2.pdf

lichess.org/forum/lichess-feedback/rating-should-not-start-at-1500#6 is my previous honest, accurate, and complete answer to your question, along with a link to reference materials authored by the world's leading expert in chess ratings. Half this forum is getting sidetracked with the apples, oranges, etc. discussion which is a red herring; 1500 is used because 1500 is correct **by definition**.
DrHack if you look at the cross tables for G/15/10 US Federation tournaments played at chess.com you can see the close correlation between the ratings otb and online.

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