Time value of money. Technical debt it's literally dollars to donuts in time spent getting yourself out of the hole you are in right now. Maintenance is the c

Time value of money. Technical debt it's literally dollars to donuts in time spent getting yourself out of the hole you are in right now. Maintenance is the cost of keeping the lights on. I run a two year old system which is now riddled with technical debt. How we got here has very little to do with the technology decision, stack, code, and a lot to do with management outsourcing and cost cutting. Technical debt is never paid back through maintenance. It's just conceptionally wrong to tie them together. To phase better I can't maintenance my self out of this problem, but I can keep this system running forever with little to no cost.