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So they don't deny that "they want to 'cripple' Bitcoin with small blocks".  

So the only question remaining is whether they want to do that "for financial gain"?  Well, I would not put it that way myself.  

Rather, I believe that Blockstream assured their investors, some time ago, that the bitcoin network would reach capacity by the end of this year. At that point (Blockstream predicted), fees would go up, and then most bitcoin users and person-to-person traffic would be pushed off the network to off-chain solutions like Coinbase or Circle.  Meanwhile Blockstream would develop an overlay network to enable secure trustless transfers through those hubs.  Blockstream must have also have mentioned that they had control of the reference implementation, and viewed the saturation as good because it would create a "fee market" etc..

With my excessively fertilized imagination, I can even close my eyes and see the slides of their presentation to the investors.

And Blockstream investors, who probably invested also in Coinbase and Circle, liked the plan very much, and gave Blockstream a few millions because of it...
Rather, I believe that Blockstream assured their investors, some time ago, that the bitcoin network would reach capacity by the end of this year. At that point (Blockstream predicted), fees would go up, and then most bitcoin users and person-to-person traffic would be pushed off the network to off-chain solutions like Coinbase or Circle.  Meanwhile Blockstream would develop an overlay network to enable secure trustless transfers through those hubs.  Blockstream must have also have mentioned that they had control of the reference implementation, and viewed the saturation as good because it would create a "fee market" etc..

With my excessively fertilized imagination, I can even close my eyes and see the slides of their presentation to the investors.

And Blockstream investors, who probably invested also in Coinbase and Circle, liked the plan very much, and gave Blockstream a few millions because of it...