[xupybd]

I remember hearing a story from a structural engineer who was disappointed with a builder on a commercial site. He took him around the site and showed him some of the sub-standard work and said to him, "This is not your best work, is it?" The builder responded with, "You should have told me you wanted my best."

I've seen this in software too. People push for cheaper and faster, but often that will only come at the cost of quality. There are good reasons to take on technical debt. For example, to get to market without the funds to avoid technical debt, in the hope you can pay down that debt with revenue flowing in. But there are seldom conversations with business people to negotiate on the quality, time, and cost trade-offs.