It doesn't seem that way to me. Many think they're actually 'funded' in their simulator account. And among the few who are funded with a live account it seems like many finds it a good deal. From my POV, trading a live account with such a firm would only be beneficial if you actually received additional funding and they'd stake you with (substantial) capital beyond the profits YOU yourself accumulated. I don't see that being the case with any of these firms. At any point in time you're basically risking your own profits. So why not withdraw them, deposit them with a discount broker and receive 100 % of the profits at a lower tax bracket? This may however be off-topic, so maybe we should just leave it at that.
Really? Even when a buy/sell-stop order briefly entered far from the price doesn't show up in the DoM? It's not difficult to distinguish between live and sim, surely? At any point after the very first stages, for sure. Well, tax considerations vary hugely from country to country, and these are businesses with customers worldwide (apart from banned countries, obviously). I suspect you and I actually disagree about very little, in this context, anyway.