If these companies; designed the devices to only make a modest profit; we would have a winning company/device to support in my eyes... the problem would be severely lessened.... to a point... a dull point.
A "modest profit"? What does that even mean? Companies are in business to make money. Investors will not invest in a company that plans to only make "modest profit." That makes it difficult to get funding for R&D, paying for components, paying salaries, taxes, etc.
I wont ever buy a brand new piece of shitmain gear. Never. They are a crooked company and don't deserve it in my mind. I hope many people do the same. They got excessively greedy; look at the profit margins that can be deduced. It's insanity.
Prices are set to what the market will bear. Apple was selling the iPhone X for $1000 and you know they had a significant profit margin on that. They are now a $1 trillion company. If you want to stay in business, you have to continue to make money.
I hope we find a way to change the meta of POW mining..... level the playing field and try to keep this thing from getting out of control and 100% centralized; which is my ultimate worst fear.
Bitmain is not the only ASIC producer. There are several competing companies... more than players in the GPU field. What's the difference between 1 million GPUs versus 1 million ASICs when calculating "centralization?" Nothing.
Powerful devices further the divide between the "decentralized and attainable by the layman"; and "big fish that can afford to dump on the latest and greatest to reap the second best rewards (first best being the manufacturer). How can we change this?
As long as game-theory and rewards is a part of POW, then there will always be people who try to gain an advantage. POS is out there, but that is more like a dividend from a stock... and boring to us miners.