Seems pretty in line with a recent frontpost of "Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part III: Paying for It " [1].

There's a cost for everything and while you can "devolve" the cost downwards of a phone to an employee it's probably correct (in capitalism perspective) for an employer to pay for any tool they require so that the input costs are correctly correlated to the output price.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48689859