At least on lichess which is where The articles mmr is coming from, 1500 is roughly average among everyone playing not people who play competitively.
I sit around 1450-1500. Myself and others I play against regularly throw pieces away for free. Not fall in to traps or anything like that, or even when rushing on low time, I mean just straight up plonk a Queen down in the path of a bishop during the early/mid game for no reason at all. And then sometimes our opponent doesn’t even realise we did it! It’s certainly not competitive tier play.
I sit around 1450-1500. Myself and others I play against regularly throw pieces away for free. Not fall in to traps or anything like that, or even when rushing on low time, I mean just straight up plonk a Queen down in the path of a bishop during the early/mid game for no reason at all. And then sometimes our opponent doesn’t even realise we did it! It’s certainly not competitive tier play.