Because depreciation is an accounting term, and a 101 understanding of it hides more than it reveals. Like anything accounting based, it's a collection of many

Because depreciation is an accounting term, and a 101 understanding of it hides more than it reveals. Like anything accounting based, it's a collection of many little rules and norms that add up to something. Finding the operative level of abstraction is always a game of tricky compromise. It's either all forest or all trees, and to be more than a take-my-word approximation an article needs to become a multi part lesson in accounting standards and tax law. True for most tax "loopholes." All that said, I'd love to see the rolled up sleeves version actually going over the account... or a fictitious one. Let's be real though. It's more likely to get eyeball on HN than elsewhere, but 96.2% would not read it and we would still be discussing it based on a surface level, bias-ridden understanding.