I've always believed that "debt" is not a great term for this. Because it does not really apply to financial debt. Financial debt is often repaid simply by bri

I've always believed that "debt" is not a great term for this. Because it does not really apply to financial debt. Financial debt is often repaid simply by bringing in more revenue because of the benefits gained from bringing on the initial debt. The only risk involved in the debt is that there will not be enough money to pay it back later. It is a very predictable and obvious issue. Technical debt is closer to educated gambling. You are taking a risk that the shortcuts you are taking will not pop up and hurt your company before you fix them. You are essentially saying, "We know this is a problem, but we are estimating that it won't hurt us for the foreseeable future". The better analogy to technical debt is investing. You are getting a certain percentage increase in productivity(a dividend or other capital gain) for the (hopefully low risk) gamble that your investment will not have a problem and wipe it out or simply cause significant losses. Developers typically do not like this because when the inevitable few cases of these "investments" turn bad, they tend to be the ones that take on the majority of the blame.