I've always thought the line about whats cheating, and what's not is unfair and arbitrary. How is it ok that some players can play 4k 200fps and others 1080p at 30fps.
The only way to be really fair is for everybody to Stream the game at the same res, frame rate and latency.
In certain competitive environments framerate is definitely limited. Here [0] are the rules for Fallout 4 any% speed runs, framerate must be capped at 60FPS. AFAIK that rule applies to all games in this engine due to physics behavior. I don't follow tournament FPS games, but it wouldn't shock me if there are rules for competitive play there as well.
If you are asking why games like counterstrike don't have limits on online play, that's mostly a commercial question. Would those games be as popular if they limited performance to what was achievable for minimum specs? I certainly wouldn't want to play at 1920x1080 on my nice widescreen monitor, but setting the minimum to a $1500 monitor and the hardware to drive it would guarantee very few players.
Yeah and in real world people from different countries with vastly different economic backgrounds compete on the same stage, I think video games are fine.
This isn't exclusive to video games. Much of the improvements to world records in sports are due to improvements in gear, yet we don't consider those records to have been unfairly achieved.
Some games do impose limits though, for example Overwatch doesn't allow you to use an aspect ratio larger than 16:9 and selecting a wider aspect ratio actually cuts down on your vertical field-of-view rather than granting you more horizontal field-of-view. This lessens the potential advantage of ultra-wide monitors.
The only way to be really fair is for everybody to Stream the game at the same res, frame rate and latency.