The tricky bit is when opportunity costs come in... "Pay me now" means sacrificing clear opportunities in the visible horizon, "pay me later" does the same thin

The tricky bit is when opportunity costs come in... "Pay me now" means sacrificing clear opportunities in the visible horizon, "pay me later" does the same thing at an less-controlled future point sacrificing presently unknown opportunities. Personally I much prefer 'pay me now', because 9 times out of 10, IME, some form of technical debt underlies the reasoning about why a team can't do something. 'It always pays to take the pain up front', basically.