Certifications can make sense in the mechanical world where there is a One Best Way to achieve a desired outcome, or there is a basic level of competency that is awkward to test for. So many mechanical trades have safety certificates that have to be periodically renewed, and most countries have the idea of a driving license that is a permit to drive a specific type of vehicle. After all we do not want an electrician or gas fitter getting creative with the building code.
In software though, as Perl programmers say There Is More Than One Way To Do It, and we do want developers to get creative, and by some reports parts of Ruby came from Perl. We don’t want to be certifying developers as capable of creating Perl CGI scripts when there is Ruby on Rails available. The same can be said for all of the cloud certifications, a money maker for the providers, but quickly outdated certifications as the could providers release new capabilities every few months, and hey presto, you need to take that certification exam again (and obviously pay the fee again).