No, the real point of guilds or licensure is to constrain the supply of those that work in the profession, generally to inflate salaries. Licenses sound good i

No, the real point of guilds or licensure is to constrain the supply of those that work in the profession, generally to inflate salaries. Licenses sound good in theory but often that just means you get more "inside the box" thinking (the kind of thinking that helps on the license/guild exams), and innovation will suffer. Would we be better off if the programming industry simply used, say C, for everything since the 70s? Some things might be better, but we'd have far less and less varied of it, I'd wager. EDIT: I assumed guilds/licenses here are mandated (which is what a guild that issues licenses often wants to do). If licenses can be ignored, it's less of an issue.