There was an ammo shortage.
First, around a million brand new owners each bought a box or two with their new possession. There's a couple million boxes right there.
Second, people in "our" community went and "stocked up." That's anywhere from 10 to 40 million more boxes.
This was all in the span of a couple months, not an entire year.
Third, the couf hit. The ammo factories had to shut down. The Ammo distributors had to shut down. The Ammo wholesalers had to shut down. Even many of the LGS & BBs had to shut down.
Now, suddenly, "our" community was in "feed me, Seymour" mode. Many, far too many, of "us" were also cooped up at home, too; we had time on our hands. And, we had time to be invested in the news, so, we heard it all, right, wrong, flat-out imaginary, news.
What did "we" do? We went online and bought, bought, bought. (It's what we do.) But, we were buying out of a closed-off supply. So, "we" for right, or for wrong, bought the shelves bare. Many--probably too many--turned a shortage in to a "situation."
Sadly, some took advantage of the situation and made it worse by "scalping" what supply there was, just exacerbating the problem.
It's taken a couple of years, but the supply is "bouncing back." My LGS is chock full of ammo (other than 38spl and 30-30--but has 32acp, 357sig, and 30carbine). Now, the prices are not ideal--they reflect all the shipping premiums needed to get the ammo before some other vendor did. I'm told the big box stores are similarly full--if occasionally with case lots of oddball ammo types.
As the supply catches up, the price will come down. That's the nature of supply and demand.
It's easy to assign nefarious and inimical intent to things. But, somethings just "are" what they are.