I’ve been lightly pushing on the idea of there being a “soft” cartel on product prices for a while and have had a lot of people push back on the idea. But it do

I’ve been lightly pushing on the idea of there being a “soft” cartel on product prices for a while and have had a lot of people push back on the idea. But it doesn’t take a bunch of ne’erdowells sitting in a smoky dark room plotting out high prices. If I’m company A and I see company B selling the same widget as mine for $5, should I sell it for $4 or $5? What’s the downside of selling it for $5, especially if it doesn’t seem like it matters. During the pandemic, people showed they didn’t really care what things cost if they wanted them. So companies just aren’t behaving like economists say they will. They have no reason to when customers have no other choice. I mean, what are we going to do?