Yeah, if there is one rising hegemon in the world, the incentives align to use his rules to get ahead. Cheating only pays when the hegemon is in decline.

A rising hegemon would get ahead himslef by dictating the use of a fork in which subsidy is increased. One excuse for such a thing would be "it's unfair that the maxis got so much of the network without contributing much". Doing so would end up setting back the true chains for decades.

For now we are in a declining hegemonic system and the hegemon is trying to keep control. Smaller parties are incentivized to cheat. Won't be the case for long.