I am from India. I have been doing competitive programming for 3 years, though I started on Codeforces late. I have a YouTube channel where I upload post-contest discussions. Channel Link. I have realized that there is a lot of cheating going on, with some YouTube creators uploading solutions during the contests and Telegram channels selling solutions.

I have observed that most of this cheating is happening in India. I think this is because they believe that higher ratings will increase their chances of getting their resumes shortlisted.

I don't care about those who are selling the solutions on Telegram. But I want to ask those who buy from them: What do you gain by doing it? No interviewer will check your ratings on your resume. No one has time to click on every CodeChef/Codeforces/AtCoder profile of every candidate to check their rating. Why are you buying it then? To flaunt your ratings in your friend circle? I have never heard of anything like a "Rating Cap" for selecting candidates.

As for the YouTube creators, they undermine the competition, and I despise it when my rating could have increased more, but now after so many have solved it, I will get fewer points. What do you gain by sharing your code on YouTube? Who are you helping? Getting some views is nice, but a 10-15-second video will not even give you enough watch time to make even 1 rupee.

To me, someone who has earned their rating through hard work holds more value than an individual who reached their rating by purchasing solutions. I anticipate receiving criticism for expressing these views, but I'm at a loss for what else to do. What's worse is that no one is talking about it or spreading awareness to deter it. If no one tells my juniors to stop, they might think it's normal to cheat to increase their rating. The prevalence of cheating, especially on CodeChef, significantly dampens my motivation.

I find myself questioning why CodeChef struggles with detecting plagiarism. Why is there no "hacking" phase on CodeChef? I urge CodeChef to enhance its plagiarism detection methods and take action against cheating. Failure to address this issue risks tarnishing the platform's reputation entirely. I sent a mail to CodeChef with screenshots of a few candidate's codes and I did not receive any reply from them.