The smartest mining builders I know seem to think it is a case of incompetence and not malice.
Discussion
On Antminers part? Hard to believe given historic evidence to the contrary.
Yeah but nobody has evidence that bitmain was running the firmware fix before they released it publicly so it's all speculation. Hanlon's Razor would indicate incompetence over malice.
nostr:npub1ag5y3zm9n2myxvt8e5pyadewqx3httqhee22rnwxuhww9ake8y3slsekr3 reverse engineered the firmware and he shares this opinion. Apparently the code is less than great. 😅
It may be possible to produce a statistical argument that bitmain mines less empty blocks based on blockchain data. But I don't think assuming a conspiracy is productive. Not defending Bitmain, they are the biggest threat to bitcoin IMO.