Definitely not, but I feel the certification is a big reason for it: - certification is usually an expensive process which doesn't add value by itself - small

Definitely not, but I feel the certification is a big reason for it: - certification is usually an expensive process which doesn't add value by itself - small teams are effectively removed from the talent pool due to the cost requirement, leaving only large (and less efficient) teams/orgs You artificially reduce competition, to the point that the remaining entities are shielded by the initial barrier to entry and have very little incentive to do anything about it. You can keep raising the certification requirements: it's actually "good" for enterprises which can afford the costs, with basically little or no change in the quality of output. This is not unique to software development either. I'm not against it by principle, but I'm very skeptical in how certification is applied in _many_ of the contexts I've seen it.