Amazon could start posting “surge price” ratios ala early Uber, so users can realize what’s going on, but realistically we are in a fairly unusual circumstance at the moment.
Most gouging hasn’t lasted long for staples. There’s a bunch of off brand hand sanitizers/masks that have popped up in Seattle. The market has adjusted, and I’m not convinced gouging would have gotten us here faster. The toilet paper I bought is labelled in Korean, which is wacky, but it’s still TP.
Producers can read through the lines, and ramp up production. If it was worth doing fewer at a particular price, it’s almost certainly worth doing 2x more at that same price (or, even better, with small reasonable multiplier). If a producer starts charging too much, other brands will eventually pop up to eat their lunch, so I suspect they won’t get too greedy during a short term spike.