> It's important to the public that scarce goods instead by allocated by willingness to stand in line.
It's important to keep in mind that a higher price is unlikely to lead to much additional capacity due to the nature of this shock. Companies have to do business with their customers for many years after this is over. "Sorry, we're overloaded with demand due to this crisis" sounds a lot better than "Pay us ten times as much during the crisis or go f* yourself." Microsoft isn't in business to allocate resources according to a simplistic strategy pulled from an intro econ course, they're in business to make money over a period of many years.
"Sorry, we're overloaded with demand due to this crisis" is "go f* yourself."
Although you're right, Microsoft may have correctly assessed that its customer relationships will turn out better if it leaves them completely hosed vs. hosed with an unpleasant escape hatch.
It's still an interesting question: what kinds of allocation systems are best when for whatever reason market pricing is off the table? There are certainly better and worse approaches within the space of lotteries, queues, etc.
Some products or services, every customer needs about the same amount, or the same minimum amount. It seems reasonable to have a maximum allocation in a crisis for those.
If different people need vastly different amounts of something, either they are able to judge, in which case prices work, or they are not, in which case some independent means of allocation has to be used.
I don't think waiting in line is a good method, but that doesn't mean unregulated prices always are either.
It's important to keep in mind that a higher price is unlikely to lead to much additional capacity due to the nature of this shock. Companies have to do business with their customers for many years after this is over. "Sorry, we're overloaded with demand due to this crisis" sounds a lot better than "Pay us ten times as much during the crisis or go f* yourself." Microsoft isn't in business to allocate resources according to a simplistic strategy pulled from an intro econ course, they're in business to make money over a period of many years.