From the article:
"Price gouging is generally defined as a situation where companies set the price above the customary level in order to prevent shortages from occurring."
This is not the definition as far as I know.
This is not the definition as far as I know.
But people feel it as price gouging. If the price has been X for a long time, and now the price is suddenly several times X because the supply got short, that feels like price gouging rather than "supply and demand".
That is, I'm selling the thing that's in short supply. But why is it in short supply? Because if I'm the manufacturer, I can't make any more of them than I'm making. And if I'm the distributor, I can't sell any more than I can buy from the manufacturer.
And why can't the manufacturer make any more? Typically, because there's some resource that they can't get. So they get some more, but they get it by paying more for it.
So the point is, when the company selling you the widget raises their price, that isn't pure profit. Their costs went up too, because the price of what they need went up.