I'm not sure your thinking applies to the term "technical debt". It's simply a way of phrasing the downsides of crufty old code in a way everybody can understan

I'm not sure your thinking applies to the term "technical debt". It's simply a way of phrasing the downsides of crufty old code in a way everybody can understand. If you really want to stretch the analogy, you take on debt to get a tangible immediate benefit - wouldn't the benefit be maximized profit or increased revenue?