You can't ignore the laws of economics and expect them to go away, any more than you can ignore the law of gravity and expect not to die when you make a high impact landing without equipment.

Just because you don't want them to be true, does not make them true, and you can't just dismiss them. In any system with scarce resources, some rationing mechanism must be at play. If it isn't price paid, it is something else like a lottery, who you're politically connected to, etc.

Sibling comment has it right. Valve is making a choice here. I think it's a better choice than raising the price personally. I detest scalpers with a burning hatred, but the way to combat that is to understand the economics behind why and how it works, not to ignore it and dismiss it with "the rich get richer"