Allowance, or pocket money, is more than just giving children money to buy things with.
First, it gives them a degree of control over their life, if you let them spend it without many limitations (i.e., they want that toy you think is dumb and won't buy for them, they save for it). Children value that sense of control, even if it's fairly small.
Second, children need to learn to save and budget, and how to value money. Children who simply have everything bought for them (whether that is "a lot" or "a little") do not learn to save up for things they really want, nor do they learn to selectively choose things that will have more value. They simply get whatever you're willing to buy them at that moment. Giving them an allowance helps teach them these things - particularly if it's a sufficient allowance to cover more than just candy and toys.
My take on this is to give children an allowance that grows as they do, both in dollar value and in what they're expected to buy with it. In elementary school aged my kids get a small allowance, one that grows with each year, but is basically for toys/snacks.
In middle school, maybe we'll add some "food" allowance, and let them make choices about what they do for lunch. They can pack a lunch (at our expense) and save the food money, or they can buy at school with their allowance. Snacks and such also come from this. We'll also start adding clothes in.
In high school, they'll fully add "clothes" to that allowance, and have again a larger allowance to compensate for it. We'll add what we spend on clothes for the year to their allowance, and let them choose - do they spend the same on clothes, more, or less, understanding the rest (plus or minus) goes to what they spend on other things.
We'll also be looking out for other things to add to their purview; perhaps activity money (think after school soccer, gymnastics, that sort of thing).
The idea here is to teach them how to evaluate tradeoffs in a "safe" environment. This is something I never really learned to do well as I had very small allowances as a child; but I think it's important to learn at that age.
I separate this intentionally from money for chores. We don't pay for chores right now; doing housework is expected and necessary for the family, and not something that should be tied to money. I don't get paid for it, my wife doesn't get paid for it, so my kids don't either. If there is something out of the ordinary that they offer to do instead of us hiring someone, or if they need money and want to do extra work to get it, we'll consider that - but not the usual and customary things (dishes, lawn, laundry, etc.), nor the 'fix up the house' stuff we're normally doing.
I think it's reasonable to take the other approach here - that it's helpful to teach kids the value of earning money by work - I just don't find it a good approach to teaching them the necessity of doing basic work for the family's benefit.