Just to answer your questions:
The game is left to right for everyone. Basically, each player sees a mirrored version of their opponent's game so for both players it is always left to right.
To make it a little bit clearer: Imagine each lane has a number. The high lane is 1, the three ground lanes are 2,3 and 4, and the water lane is 5. Things will happen in those lanes in that order always. If you put a plant in the high lane, it means it is in lane 1. Don't think of it as the one on the left or the right, just the number.
When it comes time to display the lanes, each player is shown those lanes in the same order, even though if it was a physical set up, one of the player would see the lanes in an inverse order, but thanks to computing technology and user interfaces, our mobile devices show both players the lanes in the same order.
BTW. I believe this topic has been brought up before, but I can't remember exactly where. Maybe on reddit.
So if your worry is that we have been playing against AI or some elite group of people who invested money or some weird thing like that, rest assured that is not the case 😉
Now, I encourage you to rethink your idea of human nature and look closer at some of the data that comes out of the business industry. Look up the distribution of how people typically spend money on these types of games. You'll find a very small percentage of people spend a lot of money, then a small, but larger percentage spend a little bit of money, and then the vast majority spend no money at all. So, most people don't spend any money, regardless of how competitive or how challenging a game is. What encourages people to spend their money is usually related to how encouraged they are from progressing and winning. Losing and feeling the game is rigged is NOT encouraging.