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According to people who complained about guilds, sure. But let's not forget that fraud and incompetence are extremely common across history. And also that the

• hnbad 2y ago
  In a way it's also simply a network of trust. Sure, you didn't have many masters but journeymen carried the reputation of their master and that transferred when seeking employment elsewhere as well as when eventually becoming masters themselves. The concept of having the number of businesses artificially limited also isn't gone in modern Germany: notaries and medical practices are allocated licenses based on regional population densities. As I understand it, taxi medallions are another example in the US (not sure how this works in Germany). Of course the idea in this case is to encourage specialists to spread out throughout the country rather than bunch up in the most lucrative population centers.