Sure, it's extremely common. And it results in higher costs for consumers than the ideal view of an invisible hand would any time sufficient forces other than p

Sure, it's extremely common. And it results in higher costs for consumers than the ideal view of an invisible hand would any time sufficient forces other than price are in the equation (advertising, regulation, brand loyalty, incumbency advantages, etc). Is that abusive to the customer? Let's say it isn't. It can still cause problems, in various subtle ways. If we come back to this inflation scenario: agencies and governments are currently debating what interventions to take. Depending on the root cause, they'll pick different things. If something like "companies taking advantage of herd behavior and shocks to the system to raise prices even more than is necessary based on underlying factors" is completely ignored, the prescription will focus more harshly on those underlying factors and quite likely cause more total harm than is necessary (by, say, tightening up money to the point of causing much more unemployment than would be needed if we had a knob to turn on corporate price rises).