Here's my puchasing power: "Boss, if we buy this developer tool it will save X hours of developer time." ... where X is large compared to the price of the tool. It works well enough that we use it often enough for Boss to be skeptical.
Doesn't mean there aren't worthwhile tools, because there are, but they're few and fast between.
I pulled some data and did some math, and found that we could dedicate 3 people full-time just to working on their junk. My goal with this was to light a fire under them, get that stuff automated, and free up those hours so those people could do more interesting and worthwhile work.
It did light a fire, the stuff did get automated, and the week after victory was declared, 3 people were laid off. I was very upset and yelled at my boss a lot. It sent a very clear message to everyone on the team that automation is the enemy and when they see something they can/should be improved, they’d be smart to keep their mouth shut. That’s exactly what happened. Improvement efforts ground to a halt, as no one would talk about issues or use new tools that were developed.