[squant0]

I like to compare the nominalization of technical debt to taking out bank loans and investing in the open market.

All tech debt, like loans, have some interest rate. Some debt has a great rate, say 3%, and other debt has unmanageable rates, say 18%. Once we attain some stability to begin paying down our debt, it's necessary to pay down the higher interest debt (architecture, libraries, speed, etc.). Once we whittle our way through the high interest bearing debt and we're left with low-rate rate, it may make sense to continue investing new capital into the market (novel product/feature development). The new investment could return 8-10% annually, which garners higher annual net returns (10-3 > 3) than continuing to pay down all debt.

TLDR: Some technical debt affects critical systems and flows and need to be paid down immediately. Some technical debt may be cosmetic or semantical, therefore less critical and can continue to accrue interest.