Yeah, I think there’s something to what @howard said.
I think it’s interesting to hear how bassists chose their instruments. Pino certainly chooses basses for tonal characteristics. You see him play and he will change basses for certain songs. Duff McKeegan of Guns 'n Roses plays basses purely by feel. He has bass techs and equipment to get the tone out he wants, so he chooses his instrument by what feels right.
I think it’s a spectrum. Dusty Hill got his bass because he found a deal in a pawn shop. Mina from the band Girlfriend, whom you might have seen doing a bass battle with Davie504 (and won IMO), plays the first bass she ever had, a Sago her parents gave her when she was 12. It’s a $4,000 bass.
Duff plays a bass he bought when he got his first advance from GNR. Bought it off the shelf in a store. When they record sold and they were to hit the road, Duff went to get some custom basses to tour with, Fender couldn’t get the neck right. They sent an engineer out to Duff to measure his bass, come to find the original equipment neck on Duff’s bass had a manufacturing error and was out of spec. But Duff liked the feel, so Fender went and replicated the error.
Great stories. But a lot of these artists play signature models and are under contract from companies. Boh from Babymetal has been under contract with Atelier for his basses since he was 20. Ian Hill played Fender Jazz basses up till he signed with Spector.