A lot of the hacks available to users to cheap are the reason why the eRacing World Championships required riders to use smart trainers provided to them by the UCI. And the situation you state isn't at all the most common method of cheating. The hardest to detect (at least a while ago) was software based, where a third party software injection would intercept the data stream from Zwift and modify the power numbers. Before that, the most common cheating mode was probably either weight/height doping or intentionally using a power meter that reads high (frequently pedals).
(I race on a Zwift Racing League team, completed my 335th race yesterday, and have spent about 500 hours on the platform so far.)
The reality for Zwift is that less than 10% of their user base races and they don't really care about preventing cheating unless it's already in line with their product development plan. I don't think this is why they lost the eRacing WC sponsorship for next year (to oil-funded MyWhoosh), but I'm hoping it will encourage them to take this kind of thing more seriously. Highly doubtful, though, and anyone who trolls their forums already knows the animosity Zwift faces from many (most?) racers re: their refusal to fix stupid bugs.
Strava has the same kind of problems - many of the casual userbase just want to maintain accountability and get kudos from their friends: "Hooray, you kept your heart rate in the fat burn zone for 45 minutes!" Casual Strava users don't care about the top 1% hunting KOMs at the limits of human capacity. Therefore the Strava dev team don't care about that 1% .And the 5% who inadvertently leave their device recording when they drive away from the park, not to mention the 0.1% who ride a bike just above the running KOM to cheat back their record, completely ruin it.
It's very difficult to build a platform capable of fighting intentional fraud, especially when you have limited control of what your users are doing. It's completely hopeless if that fraud has limited impact on your business. Users with limited moderation/review tools trying to fight fraud are fighting a losing battle.
(I race on a Zwift Racing League team, completed my 335th race yesterday, and have spent about 500 hours on the platform so far.)
The reality for Zwift is that less than 10% of their user base races and they don't really care about preventing cheating unless it's already in line with their product development plan. I don't think this is why they lost the eRacing WC sponsorship for next year (to oil-funded MyWhoosh), but I'm hoping it will encourage them to take this kind of thing more seriously. Highly doubtful, though, and anyone who trolls their forums already knows the animosity Zwift faces from many (most?) racers re: their refusal to fix stupid bugs.