[johannes1234321]

Well, it's not only "I won't be around" but also the fact that such a fixcan be done in a few places easily.

However in many cases such an issue comes from the core data store of the company and then goes into all derived systems. Updating this is a major project, where you need to update all consumers, most likely by adding a whole new API layer isntead of direct data access first and then update all data (don't forget the process to work on the data from the tape archive!) and then move on.

And then comes reality – Y2K has been fixed with hit fixes to the systems which do calculations and then different systems do their work-arounds and then one things "oh, there is this important business change now, but the refactoring has 20 years" and then it's pushed and pushed. Five years later somebody stumbles over the hitfix wonders, asks management, which again pushes other tasks ... and suddenly it's 2020.

Fixing technical debt is often overseen as priorities are on features impacting immediate business value.