Why are people paying these stupid tube prices?

Have you been following the latest news in tube world? Many dealers legitimately have supply chain issues which has caused price increases, others have used this situation to price gouge. There has been availability issues for NOS tubes for a couple of years leading to price increases, but the interruption of Russian tube exports has wreaked havoc among music production and home audio.

The two dealers mentioned above are included in what I would call price gouging.

One is 2/3 cheaper (tube store) would not call that gouging man. The Viva guy is out of this world high, price and I think on dope too. 

With fuses available retailing for 10K this don't seem so bad.

$184 at Upscale, not to terrible. I think most tube users know it cost more to run tubes.