This is what it comes down to. UX is NOT a professional industry in the way medicine, law, electrical, or aviation are. UX has been increasingly ruled by amateurs because the professionals were not able (or unwilling) to defend their turf. The end result is that UX remains poorly defined, even more poorly understood, and barely even practiced at most companies.

The symptoms of the lack of professionalism in UX (some might say, tech in general) are numerous. Toxic portfolio culture happens because of the widespread and pernicious lie that UX is somehow a matter of "opinion". This is, of course, due to the (ahem) "creatives" in the field. You know, the man-buns and mustache bois who are more art than science and overran the field during the UX gold rush, then remade UX departments in their own image, with the express goal of excluding ACTUAL UX people. As a result, just like with art, there is no standard of what makes a "good" portfolio, and everyone has a different answer.

Then there is the issue of ageism. Think about any other industry out there. Most people would see a 50 year old electrician as being preferable to a 20 year old. because they have years of experience. The same applies to pilots, doctors, and lawyers. But in tech? They apparently see experience as a liability, mainly because tech is full of adult toddlers who won participation trophies and had mommy do everything for them.

I guarantee you, if companies could be sued when bad UX caused harm to people, we'd see this unprofessional culture disappear overnight. Up until now, tech was allowed to remain the world's biggest amateur industry because it was wrongly associated with silly toys, meal delivery apps, and dating sites. But that attitude is horrifically antiquated. Society recognizes the dangers of letting amateurs install electrical wiring in houses, or perform surgery, or fly jumbo jets. It's time the world acknowledges how dangerous it is to let amateurs design banking systems, medical databases, and aircraft flight decks.