Broadly speaking, technical debt is a trade-off between quality and expediency. The problem isn't that it exists. The problem is that businesses will saddle themselves with debt and refuse to pay it back.

The difference between swiping a credit card and closing the balance out at the end of the month. And carrying around a forever-rising balance on a card that's charging you 29% APY.

[–] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 5 points 1 week ago

I used to try to explain to management that some debt is high interest.

[–] jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago

Exactly this. I like to say "the interest on the technical debt always comes due." The problem isn't so much that it exists but that organizations fail to manage it. Just like fiscal debt, sometimes technical debt is necessary or advantageous. The key is investing enough effort to keep the balance and interest rate low.

When that doesn't happen, features take longer and longer to implement as even small changes require increasingly large amounts of refactoring.

Additionally, defect rates tend to rise. In my experience, organizations that don't like to manage technical debt also don't like to invest time in proper unit testing.