A normal thing I'd say. We've seen this happen a lot of times in the past, and every sane person would just turn off their machines if it does not produce profit but rather a deficit. Only the big guns are getting something right now due to the overall network hashrate being low, but once everything normalized, we'll see the same miners turning on their machines to hash again. This is certainly not the end as institutions are currently going in on the action, and more positive news are trickling down the ecosystem day by day.
Yeah, I think it's actually a good thing that some miners shut down. This is going to lead to difficulty adjustment in maximum a couple of weeks, which will make mining more profitable. The price is terrible and it's better not to risk it for miners now. Throwing away the equipment doesn't make sense, though. People could at least try to sell them is they think the market's doomed or simply wait this period out. After all, many of us still believe that cryptocurrencies will rise again.
The only thing that's bad is that some newbies can read news like that and think that this is the end, so they should sell everything in panic...