Price discrimination is VERY illegal. And there's a reason for it: the reality is not that 'whoever pays more needs it more', it's that 'whoever pays more has the resources to do so'; especially in situations where demand is inelastic.
Of course, the form of price discrimination that is illegal is the kind that selects people and chooses different prices for them.
Companies can quite literally shut customers out of the market by hoarding supply and charging the profit maximizing price & selling the profit maximizing quantity. Demand is inelastic for a reason: it's because without it, people are clearly worse off to a great degree. In a pandemic situation, if N95 masks cost $100, there's going to be people who quite literally can't afford them. In your worldview, you posit that they don't deserve to have them because if they really needed them, they'd find a way to pay. But that's not how it turns out. People end up going without.
The free market's morals mirror those of its participants. If everyone thought like you, N95's would be prohibitively expensive for many.
This is where you and I fundamentally differ. I don't believe that some people deserve to live more than others because of their value to society. I think that we as humans have gotten to a point where we no longer have to make such value judgments to live good, meaningful lives. And I think it's up to people like @million$$$smile who are selling at fair prices on purpose to make sure that everyone who needs, gets. The price, and the intent, makes the difference, and that's why I don't condemn Randall for what he did. Good people go into business because they believe they can distribute benefits to the market more efficiently, and that's what he did. The fact that Randall stood to profit gave an incentive to do it. What the person in the article did was only see dollar signs, not caring if people went without.
Sometimes I get sad at the way people think, because I know that if I were worse off due to circumstances out of my control, I'd be considered less worthy of life.
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