Yes and no. For example, the company I currently work for has 15 years of unaddressed technical debt, and it has enormous impact on everything we're doing toda

Yes and no. For example, the company I currently work for has 15 years of unaddressed technical debt, and it has enormous impact on everything we're doing today. Fixing it is absolutely necessary, and where it's been possible to do so it's already made a significant impact. However, in a few years things will likely still be awful and even the shiny new improvements will have been dirtied up, because the cultural and managerial decisions that led to the current state are still in full effect. You're correct in that technical debt is ironically usually as much a people problem as a technical one and solely-technical solutions are usually inadequate. That doesn't mean that I'm going to stop fixing things where I can and pushing for change though, because at the very least it means my life there will be a little saner (until I finally burn out on fighting the tide and find somewhere different to go).