[olliesaunders]

Price increases are the natural response from market forces given the reduction or merely risk of reduction in supply. This has at least two important beneficial effects: 1) people are less likely to panic buy 2) the incentive for supplying increases.

[nicholassmith]

No doubt, free market economies do love price increases but it's often at a level that could be viewed as price gouging to make money off someones misfortune. Whether that's a truly bad thing is probably a longer conversation for a different day (is there a morality in the marketplace, and so on).