I came here to make the same point - you are spot on. Companies raise prices whenever they can and lower them whenever they have to. Which is true for everyone

I came here to make the same point - you are spot on. Companies raise prices whenever they can and lower them whenever they have to. Which is true for everyone - we demand higher wage when we can get away with it and suck it up with lower comp when we can't. To your point, companies can't max out the prices whenever they want (or an apple would cost a hundred dollars - why not?) They have to deal with a world of consumers and competitive response. As a consumer, my response to a raised price could very often be to drop demand (I like apples but not at a $100 per) which then punishes the overall revenue of the supplier. It also draws competition (I wasn't gonna plant an apple orchard in my back yard but now that apples are super valuable, I will. And I am going to undercut your $100 apples to get the business.) In general this process has worked to generate an affordable plenty for us. Lamenting something at a narrow point in time is myopic.