No one is making awful $6000 cakes (or at least they're not selling them). You can absolutely tell how good a baker's cake is by how much they charge, assuming

No one is making awful $6000 cakes (or at least they're not selling them). You can absolutely tell how good a baker's cake is by how much they charge, assuming they're actually making sales. Someone who is consistently selling cakes for thousands of dollars is a very good baker. Beyond that, you have to bear in mind that $30 cakes and $6000 cakes are basically different products. The former is a dessert and the latter is closer to art. A very successful baker making $30 cakes is more like the head chef at a restaurant than a home baker - they're running an operation that's making those cakes at scale (because there's a limit on how successful you can be selling $30 cakes that you make yourself - only so many hours in the day). A baker making $6000 cakes is making hands-on, labor-intensive creations, and while that person may have some staff, they're involved in each cake. Their work doesn't scale the way the large-scale $30 cake operation does, but they can make lots of money in the same way a high-paid lawyer does - basically a very high hourly rate for their work.