[concordDance]

Well the question they are asking is: why now? Were companies not wanting to maximize profits 5 years ago?

[alexaholic]

I suspect what happened was rising prices because of the pandemic and the war showed companies they can increase prices without also suffering a significant decrease in sales. After all, when virtually all prices are going up, where are consumers going to go?

[mrguyorama]

Surely nothing happened in the past couple years that demonstrated people can absorb some extra costs?