[carlmr]

>It seems now however a simple app on a phone could do the hearing test and then match up what the patient needs with an open sourced hearing aid.

I would bet a lot of things could be done by regular people with proper software support. Having licensed gatekeepers raises prices for the service. Since you're excluding a lot of supplierd from the market.

The question is then why gatekeep at all?

With antibiotics for example, abuse and misuse can cause a lot of harm, so having someone gatekeep them, even if this raises the price of service makes sense.

But with a lot of licensed professions we're merely creating an artificial moat that increases prices in a market economy.