The Rent-Seeking Is Too Damn High

And it sucks to get a bad meal at a restaurant, or poor quality customer service. So we have yelp and google reviews for businesses to try and avoid these situations. We don't need government licensing protect us from every having a bad experience with a business.

Liability should be motivation enough for any business to not let unskilled barbers handle a straight razor.

From the article:

"In Nevada, according to Politico, barbers need more than two years of training to qualify for a license; that’s a high bar to anyone looking to break into the business."

Is it possible that 2 years is a bit more than what's needed to achieve your desires? If so, if big enough, that additional requirement is "too much" rent seeking.

The article is saying "too high". While it doesn't go out of its way to acknowledge the sorts of needs you refer to, the specific barber example it gives is:

"In Nevada, according to Politico, barbers need more than two years of training to qualify for a license; that’s a high bar to anyone looking to break into the business."

Again using the word high, and it's hard for me to see needing quite that much training to cover the hygiene issues as well as a minimum of technique and practice.

Food safety is a much more significant risk, yet we seem to be doing fine without requiring licenses for every restaurant cook.

One could compare different states and see how much regulation is enough. The most regulated states are surely regulated too much--infections from visits to barbershops don't even show up in health statistics as a meaningful risk.

It's important that drivers be reasonably competent too, and so we have a licensing program. But it is cheap and quick. (Where "quick" might mean a long line at the DMV, but not an apprenticeship.)

Sure. A four hour class would be reasonable.