why did they suddenly decide to charge more? If they always had that price making power, why weren't they already using it to charge as much as they could?

I listened to the Richard Wolff episode and he never covered this, even after I was shouting into my device my question.

His it-really-is-that-simple schtick got tired. Why wouldn't he answer my question?

The only possible answer would be that covid gave them an excuse. Oh I'm sorry, capitalists need an excuse to raise prices or else they cannot get away with it? Sounds unlikely, knowing capital the way I know it.