Tubes becoming hard to get?

Another company taking advantage of the situation

That’s a joke. A 25% increase is way WAY below market demands right now. Upscale has had to limit customers to 4 power tubes each 180 DAYS to keep from selling out instantly. They’re trying to help spread the tubes out to more amps.

Even a 100% price increase right now will sell out in many cases for the more popular types. Viva tubes increased prices a lot more than Upscale, and even they're running low on stock and having to limit customers now. 

I’d happily a healthy premium on Gold Lion KT88 if I could find them. It’s been a bad time to change my favorite power tube from KT120.

To summarize:

• The main supply issue facing audiophiles is for power tubes - especially the big types for which there is no NOS / vintage alternative in quantity. The situation is especially dire for amps designed around KT120 and up (especially 150, 170).
• The Russian New Sensor factory still running, and can still ship tubes to USA but it's going to be much more costly and possibly via an indirect route (i.e. another country).
• If you want to get a preview of what tube prices are likely to be going forward, go to the Electro Harmonix / New Sensor online store. Listed prices are between 2x and 3x more expensive than they were just a couple months ago. For example, KT120 were ~ $50, and now they're listed at $150. Even the tube resellers accused of "gouging" in the past month were selling well BELOW these new prices. 
• Upscale Audio has inventory, but they've halted tube sales as of yesterday (April 14). Other sellers seem to be just about out of the more desirable KT types.
• The big Chinese Shuguang factory was shut down a couple years ago. No word on a replacement factory. No indication China will be able to provide power tubes in scale like they used to, for a long time. JJ itself is way backordered, and many of us would not use JJ power tubes in our amps anyways (bad experiences) - especially JJ tubes from a stressed factory. 
• We had a wonderful several (or so) years where New Sensor was producing great quality tubes at cheap prices. I'm grateful for those times. It might not be coming back.