Those who pay the attackers might have no other choice. Sure they should have taken backups. But right now they don't have any. What else can they do?
Maybe government can enact laws asking to maintain backups regularly in critical industries.
They can take the hit and live without their data, thereby making the world safer for the rest of us. Focusing only on their own personal problem is the definition of selfishness.
That's a step in the right direction, but we need more.
If you're critial industry and get ransomwared there should be hefty fines for everyone involved from the top down.
Also there should be hefty fines for any data leaks that are a result of ransomware attacks.
Companies will start moving when getting ransomwared due to low security standards is a major impact on your financials and not like some "put 50k aside for data hostage situations".