[awinder]

That sounds exactly like financial debt to me. Too much (financial or technical debt) is an anchor, healthy amounts of debt result in not being able to do everything / having some limitations but overall you're in a good place, and no debt probably means it's time to actively pursue opportunities. No?

[notender]

With technical debt, each new feature now costs $nx where n is the multiplier for the accrued technical debt. A feature that you need in 2 months to support a market shift now needs 4 months to complete due to technical debt.

The issue with this oversimplified formula is that you cant accurately determine which debt affects which features. For some features it could be zero, and others it could be 100.

However, I do agree that all teams should be carrying an amount of technical debt to be healthy. It shows a certain quality of decision making to balance it well.

All too often though it becomes an excuse to procrastinate and that might as well be gambling.

[sixstringtheory]

I see this as interest on debt. When you have $1K of credit card debt, a $500 payment goes a long way. When you have $20,000, that same $500 is mostly covering interest, so you pay down the principal slower.

The additional complexity and work that comes with tech debt is the interest you pay on it.