New to CS2 and confused about all the different skin rarities. What's the actual difference between them besides color?

Rarity basically determines how often a skin drops from cases. Rarer colors like red and gold are harder to get so they cost more usually

The color coding shows drop rates from cases. White and light blue are common, purple and pink are less common, red is rare, and gold is extremely rare. But rarity isn't the only thing that matters for price. Condition matters too like factory new versus battle scarred. Some skins also have special patterns or stickers that make them more valuable. If you want to understand all this stuff better go to this website and read about how the skin system works