Your observation on certifications applies to all certifications, not just for SM roles. A certification only proves you can learn some material then pass a multi-choice test. There is no skill transferred from the certification body to the one passing a certification. The fancy piece of paper you get after passing the test doesn’t guarantee that you can apply in an effective manner all the things that were on the test.

Unfortunately, this is a big industry that has convinced companies that the good employees are the certified employees. So now people need to play this game just to be considered for some jobs. It’s sad.

Scrum certifications are big business (see for example the SBOK abomination especially designed to sell fancy pieces of paper) and unfortunately Scrum itself helps with this by becoming more and more abstract and generic form version to version. It lowers the entry bar for those who want to be certified SM, PO, or whatever (at least PMI asks for experience before allowing you to apply for a PMP certification, while with Agile certifications anyone from the street can apply).