Being involved with Dash, when the x11 ASICS came, only a handful of manufacturers and they are selling it at exorbitant prices that would probably never break even. A problem that still exists today. I suspect the vast majority of these miners are being retained by the manufacturers themselves.

We can't liken it to Bitcoin when it was the only cryptocurrency around but even then it's still only a handful of manufacturers. Bitmain is basically the only one where outsiders can get their hands on the miner easily.

They always talk about 'hash rate' as protection but I would argue that if it requires specialized hardware that only can be obtained from a few sources, that hash rate protection is a bit meaningless. It just makes it easier for the ASICS to dominate.