I agree with the general concept, but the example in the article are so extremely exaggerated that it’s hard to take the article seriously. A $15 tool that would save hundreds of hours of tasks? A conference visit that would save millions? Anyone who has had to approve, review, or audit expenditures knows it’s not that simple.
I was involved with a company that got a lot of funding during the zero interest rate era and adopted this idea that it was self-defeating to scrutinize software and hardware purchases. When the money stopped flowing they finally started reviewing software and hardware expenditures and found, unsurprisingly, a massive amount of unnecessary spending.
In the real world it’s almost never a $15 tool that saves hundreds of hours (like this article used as an example). Instead, it was countless SaaS platforms with per-seat licensing fees that added up huge recurring bills.
There was a recurring theme where some department would say they needed some SaaS tool, so it got approved. Then they would add everyone in the department and many people outside so they could share and access the links. Every time someone needed access, they’d add another seat for that person. Countless cases of teams spending $49/month times 50 seats times multiple years for a tool that nobody could even recall using recently. Multiply this by dozens of tools, some of which were very expensive, and the amount spent on unused SaaS seats could have easily funded multiple extra engineering teams.
So while I think it’s frustrating to have to petition to get purchases made, I’ve also seen the madness that happened when it’s a free for all. Gone are the days when someone would expense a $50 software tool and use it for years. Now it’s a SaaS with a recurring subscription that has viral tricks to get everyone who uses it to count as an extra seat for monthly fees.
Conferences are another area that can become a boondoggle very quickly. Don’t even get me started on the “conferences” that were actually just week long getaways with JavaScript influencers at some resort somewhere, with a couple presentations included so you could get your company to cover it.