Free market capitalism, they're charging what people are willing to pay. Kinda like how there are no cheap trucks anymore, it's makes more sense for them to do lower volumes of more expensive models than higher volumes of cheaper models. The next thing coming will be paying subscription fees to use features built into the car you already paid for (Tesla is already toying with this.) Just wait until AI-driven "price optimization" becomes standard across all industries. Let's say your mom just died and all the airlines know because you agreed to give them all your data when you downloaded their app, how much would you be willing to pay for a plane ticket to get to her funeral on the other side of the country? $3000? $4000? More? Companies don't even bother innovating anymore, it's all just one giant rent-seeking scam to drain as much money as possible out of you until you die. Everything you do will be monitored and you will own nothing.