its not like this company isnt known for using their equipment first to drive up the difficulty and then shipping the used ones to people...

Agreed.
But it might be the first time that Bitmain is not doing this just for short term profits. They also seem to be trying to manipulate the future of the Bitcoin protocol and prolong their advantage of covert ASICBoost mining.
Just to review, they're using customer funds to control Litecoin and indirectly control Bitcoin.
I pray that this bites Bitmain hard in the ass someday. We really need real alternatives to this evil company.
Either that or we need to form "Miners Anonymous" and get clear of this mess
