Not necessarily as it is passed down generations. This is in fact when it becomes more painful. Regardless, technical debt was always clearly a metaphor. I can

Not necessarily as it is passed down generations. This is in fact when it becomes more painful. Regardless, technical debt was always clearly a metaphor. I can imagine many other metaphors where one may owe something to oneself, eg, “sleep debt”. Who cares if it conforms to the definition of the Bank of England?