> Am I crazy for thinking that anyone using computers for doing their job and making their income should have a $5k/year computer hardware budget at a minimum?
Yes, you are crazy for saying that.
> but compared to revenue it seems silly to be worrying about a few thousand dollars per year delta.
There is a very wide range of incomes of people using their computers, and, more to the point, $5k/yr on hardware is way past the point where, for most people using their computer for income, additional hardware expenditure has any benefit to income generation.
> Even if you don’t go the overkill route like me, we’re talking about maybe $250/month to have an absolutely top spec machine which you can then use to go and earn 100x that.
Most people using their computer to earn income do not earn anywhere close to $25,000/mo ($300k/yr), and hardware expenditures aren't the limiting factor holding them back.
Also, the minimum of $5k/yr you suggested is not $250/mo, but more than 1.5× that at $417/mo.
> Spend at least 1% of your gross revenue on your tools used to make that revenue.
Median annual wage for a US software developer is ~$140k per most recent BLS numbers, and that's one of the higher-paying fields of work that people use computers for. Neither your original $5k per year nor even the $3k/year suggested by your later $250/mo suggestion are warranted by your 1% on tools rule for most people earning income with their computer, especially on hardware alone, as that is far from all of the "tools" that are relevant to most computer work.