I'm starting to believe that debt is the wrong metaphor. Imagine you have 1k in debt and 2k in the bank. You're free to pay down that debt, so you do. If you later realize that you actually need that 1k used for the debt, you can simply take out a new loan and effectively undo that step. This is precisely where the tech-debt analogy breaks. When you invest a month into fixing tech debt, you can't get that month back. That decision is final.