If there were no farmed salmon you couldn’t afford buying the wild.
The wild prices are high because of all the middle men; because famed fish are frequently sold at a loss to deliberately undercut wild caught; wild fish are mostly caught by individuals, while farmed fish are raised by corporations; wild prices are also high because of the onerous legal restrictions placed on harvest and reselling by the State’s legislators and their respective Fishery Depts.; WA even regulates according to how much they think a fishermen can earn to determine harvest times and quotas.
If you cannot afford wild, then an even cheaper alternative to farmed salmon is to go to a marine supply store, buy a can of bottom paint with cuperous oxide; hit up the pharmacy for some cheap over the counter drugs ending with ‘ciline’; and the grocery store for some red dye #2; mix and stir well. Throw in a can of cat food, kneed the mixture until firm; fry it up.
That’s what you are eating with farmed fish. Back in the old days, they even irradiated them negating the need to keep the meat cold ... we kept a sample in a bucket in the garage over the summer with no discernible change at the end.