> It’s a direct financial punishment for a company with lax security practices. It encourages greater security practices.
That argument could be used to justify any theft or even kidnapping.
I know many people who grew up in countries where kidnapping was a very real concern. Consequently, they had to adopt "greater security practices" and it had a very real, negative effect on their lives.
There are real harms to randomware. Companies go out of business, people lose their jobs, people lose their service providers, etc.
To say, "it serves them right for not following proper security" literally can be said for a mom/pop business in a poor neighborhood who didn't have bulletproof glass or bars on their windows. It is negating the fact that (a) the harms are very real and (b) security costs money and resources, which is effectively another tax on their business.
If instead the government made it illegal to pay such ransoms and actively audited large BTC transactions and charged people accordingly, then we could get rid of the incentives to do this in the first place.
The government should similarly hold firms accountable when they are hacked (due to the harms on consumers) and require prompt disclosure of any hacks.
There are ways to incentivize the preferred outcomes without supporting the active theft of property and destruction of someone's business.