I'm not alone

In one chess forum I found a topic about Elo rating. People discuss about it and they reflect if the rating is necessary?

In my point of view it is helpful, but not necessary. It helps us to show the level of our skills at current time. But we need to know that Elo rating will not help us to be a stronger player.
I noticed that some people play for rating. They don't want to improve their skills, but the most important thing for them is just to have higher rating. I totally don't understand it. What is the sense to have higher rating if somebody with lower rating will be able to easily beat us?
The other thing is that today I can have a rating 2600 and not play chess at all for a long time. In next 5 years I will have the same rating, but only in theory, because in real my rating will be around 2450 or even less. That's why I say, that the rating is not important for us. These are just digits close to our name, nothing more.
I like reading what people say about ratings, because each opinion is different. Each user of forum motivate his point of view different.