Lol, over 400/week is standard in eastern PA, US. Many daycares sampled in our search. Medium cost of living suburban area.

Also over 1 year wait list.

If you have a wait list, the price isn't high enough

Or maybe you value the consistency of full enrollment that comes with a waitlist over the additional revenue you could earn with higher prices. Could be the case if there are high costs to changing the size of the business.

Imagine there’s a law that you can only have 4 children per caregiver. Your capacity is 8. Lose one and your revenue is down 12.5%

A good example of where free market ideology falls flat

How so? This doesn't have much to do with a free market.

The same applies if eg the government provides a service for a fee, or otherwise gates access to something. Eg H-1B visas to the US should arguably be auctioned off.

You can't criticise free markets where there is no market, let alone a free one.

"Supply and demand" is not a free market claim, it is accepted by everyone.

I'm just pointing out that the NHS exchanges monetary cost with temporal cost - you're paying with your time rather than your dollars, for access. You're also paying dollars via tax, but that's unrelated to access.

A nation can accept or even demand this trade-off, and many do - but support tends to drop when it is made explicit.

You are a lucky person. I just looked up my tax statements for 2022 and I paid $1341.67/month for an older kid (not infant). Waiting lists are atrocious and everywhere (and many places charge a $75-150 deposit for the waiting list alone); we got in fast because it was a new location. I am in the Midwest, not a coast.