[kovacs_x]

yes and no.

yes, authority is usually with CFO or line managers, how/when and for how much things are APPROVED depending on the company and its policies and NO as it's developers that come and (authoritatively) say "We need you purchase this and that, because ..." and are the ones that evaluate tools and make such requests. Also there's big difference whether we're talking some sw for $100 one time payment or SaaS service for 100K/month, imo.

And then there's of course freelancers and well-off devs that buy things for themselves that make their decisions on their own.

tl;dr; if you think that devs dont have authority, maybe its you or your sales skills/strategy/methods that fail you more? ;)