It's the "how much can the banana cost, $10?" of HN.
The point they're trying to make is a valid one - a company should be willing to spend "some money" if it saves time of the employee they're paying.
The problem is usually that the "IT Budget" is a separate portion/group of the company than the "Salary" budget, and the "solution" can be force a certain dollar amount has to be spent each year (with one year carry-forward, perhaps) so that the employees always have good access to good equipment.
(Some companies are so bad at this that a senior engineer of 10+ years will have a ten year old PoS computer, and a new intern will get a brand new M5 MacBook.)
