Yes, because the debt analogy is strained: Debt: * Interest is due on a periodic basis, with consequences if you default such as recovery, court, reposession

Yes, because the debt analogy is strained: Debt: * Interest is due on a periodic basis, with consequences if you default such as recovery, court, reposession, bankruptcy. * You may be asked to pay back the principal on a trigger (e.g. margin call) depending on the contract, or you may have to pay towards it each month (repayment mortgage) "Tech Debt": * No pressure to repay * There is arguably a recurring cost to having bad structure, but this cost varies based on the amount of activity on the codebase. No new features and only security bug fixes = very little interest and no new tech debt. This is unlike regular debt. * Can't really be measured accurately (like real debt). * If the company is sold it is not on the books. So it's sort of like debt, but not exactly.