Renderer.sharedMaterial/sharedMaterials always seems to return Instances?

I thought this was supposed to return the base asset, not an instance? Is this something new? Using 2018.1.6f1.

EDIT: This is the code am using to access:

MeshRenderer[] meshRenders = GetComponentsInChildren<MeshRenderer>();

 

I just discovered that if you first access material(s), you will loose the link to the shared. I guess this is because Unity creates duplicates when you access material(s), and even sharedmaterial(s) will point to those.