Let's enjoy ships

I agree, whales aren't pleased as well, when f2p can't catch up at all which is probably true here. You need "only" 15 shards to upgrade to 2* which is laughable in the big picture (320 more shards to 7*). But for six ships from 1* to 2* you need 24 shipments (each ship needs 4*4 shards). 800 free tokens each day means two collections from shipments, so 12 days which is really way too slow. Getting 8 ships to 7* is about 640 collections or 320 days.
The normal arena squad can be farmed to 7* as f2p without any problems at all in a good month. Sure p2p can buy chromiums and have instantly all five at 7*, but even they have to bide their time in levelling up, so f2p can compete in arena with the whales (which I do).
Now you might think whales are happy that f2p don't have a chance at all with ships, but it ain't so. Any freemium title lives from whales and f2p players. No f2p players means a game drying out because the masses are missing, and this just might happen with ship arena.