I would respond to your observation at two levels:

First is the water cooler argument. I worked in a place where it took us two years to get a water cooler. The admin suite around the GM got a coffee machine in the meantime but we were expected to drink from the tap which ran hot (we had hot water in the loo’s too - some mystery in the plumbing). Tea & coffee was provided as per union agreement (they hadn’t moved along the generations to water). Chocolate milk was provided though not in the agreement because we had a lot of religious people on the corridor who had won the anti-caffeine argument some time before. None of this required an ‘argument’. It was posturing BS from people who have nothing better to do than argue with their staff and we could have afforded the water cooler by . . . least said. I have been given a (physically) damaged computer here in the UK and as someone else described it, her workstation looked as it it had been smeared with poo - leading player in our sector BTW. Some things are just not to be debated. If I don’t see people on social media, I do wonder what is going on. If IT is lagging to that extent in a company, I think a lot of other questions have to be answered before a savvy employee puts his/her career in the hands of a firm.

So while custom does drive expectations to some extent, the second level of my response is that we are putting procedure before purpose (and frankly, hiring people as automatons). When we hire someone to do something, step one is to sit down and ask them how they are going to do the task. If they are worth more than the minimum wage, then they are bringing skill to the table and we are listening for their views. Firms are OFTEN buying a network too. To recruit for network and then not allow the person to communicate with the network just doesn’t make sense. Anyway, once the conversation is in progress it will become clear what is needed and why. If we are so broke we can’t put 300 pound server on their desk, use amazon etc., mmm. .