The law is how you increase the cost. Every law has a punishment for breaking it.

I don't think it matters even one iota how much more profitable it is to do something explicitly bad for consumers, explicitly to ensure you extract more profit from those consumers. McDonald's can beg to put sawdust in their burgers, and dairy providers can beg to put chalk and other whiteners in their milk, and game devs can beg to retain full ownership of everything they rent out AND be able to change the thing you've rented without notice or recourse.

All of that is profitable. It's also all desperately in need of regulation.