I think the argument is that artificial comes in with IP law, which some people feel is superfluous.

I do think that corporate price gouging is a huge problem that does need to be addressed. But especially with smaller business types — creatives, et al— I still haven’t gotten any grownup answers about what would compel people to get professionally good at something and innovate in the complete absence of copyright: the vastly better business model would be waiting for someone else to do something new and interesting, stealing their work, and then undercutting them in the market because you don’t have R&D/et al costs to recoup. You can’t say that wouldn’t happen because it’s exactly what the AI companies did to billions of people, scoffing at any protest. And ironically, they’re now whining about the Chinese doing it to them.

Separating out what is artificial or not seems more like an exercise in rhetoric; defining things as fundamental and real. The whole economy is an imaginary thing dreamed up by our natural human brains.

Not sure they're just recouping costs and not lining their execs pockets.

The government backed monopoly to ensure that supply remains artificially restricted to ensure that the market will support the higher prices is