Where I've worked, laptops are often seen as fungible resources aside from OS, i.e. all Mac laptops are interchangeable and all Wintel laptops are interchangeab

Where I've worked, laptops are often seen as fungible resources aside from OS, i.e. all Mac laptops are interchangeable and all Wintel laptops are interchangeable. On the other hand, laptops haven't gotten much faster until very recently with Intel's 8th gen chips going to quad-core so I can see the IT and bean-counter perspective as well. The bigger the company the more likely they are to have a policy such as the one you mentioned. I've been working for startups recently, and what you are issued is what you'll be working on for a long time, at least unless it stops working and can't be replaced (eg, a 2012 Macbook Air that isn't manufactured anymore) As a team lead I have to fight to get the best hardware for my team sometimes, like 16GB RAM and good screens. So sometimes someone gets an upgrade just because of that, and the old laptop goes to someone who doesn't need to run demanding apps.