I don't think this is being done primarily for profit.
Although I don't doubt enormous profits are being harvested.
What I do believe is that this is a result of mean, malicious, vindictive pettiness. It is meant to hurt and humiliate, to punish and torture; to put people "in their place", to "show them who's boss". And as an unexpected bonus, it kills, too.
It reminds me of those hippies at Kent State, and those Freedom Riders in Old Dixie half a century ago. "Serves 'em right. It shoulda been done long ago."