Mining isn't a charity and it's not like NYA actually agreed to subsidize miners to point their hashrate at S2X chain. So people are only going mine the more profitable chain.
In fact, I find it interesting that Jihan Wu did not go thru the usual "blame Blockstream" routine in his interview. He actually said that he is indifferent when it comes to tech issues such as scaling roadmap, segwit, etc.. He reserves the criticisms for Theymos, which is just down right bizarre. Going so far as to answer, "You will have to ask Theymos for that", when asked which implementation does he think will end up being called Bitcoin in the end.
Of course, it could be that Jihan and Roger Ver has little credibility when it comes to technical issues, as the Core team is widely recognized as being the one with most tech credential and IQ (though with low EQ). Or Jihan could simply be backtracking a bit, not wanting to be blamed when S2X fork end up being a total clusterfook.
After all, bitcoin's marketcap is now $100 billion and up 10x since the time when scaling debate really got heated. So even if Jihan could not give a fook about the users, he has to care about some of the biggest VC names in the Silicon Valley, who had just given him $50 million. If S2X turns out to be a disaster, Jihan will be blamed for the huge drop in bitcoin price and lose whatever little credibility he has in the industry. Obviously, he does not want that.
But that could be his PLAN, IF price dumps badly ..he can be part of a btc roundtable like he was on the LTC roundtable...and reach consensus...in the mean time (just like LTC0 he has
all this NICE cheap crypto of any flavor again to scoop up....like he did wiht LTC.....now he could pull same stunt with BTC (or hell BCH for that manner) win/win/win
He comes out looking like a hero with others...forced to consensus due to massive price dump (assuming consensus was reached on a really big price dump and controversy) and clean up buying more coin low and it all rebounds off the FUD
bitmain: (we do evil well!) tm bitmain
This is a plausible scenario. He has deep pockets and can play a long game.
Everyone involved at the top of this game must be gaming all scenarios. The attack depends entirely on BTC hashing power moving so that blocks are slowed up because miners are tempted to move for more profitable chains and users become confused and panicked and move (or dump) too. This is why S2X has timed it for just before a big difficulty hike.
Jihan will want this battle to play out in his favour of course, BTC being in trouble means his position could be improved massively.
If Core is in trouble or even dented then a land grab possibility will exist and power might shift. This is what the attackers want.
This is not a free money drop, it is a battle for who controls Bitcoin.