Debt:
* Interest is due on a periodic basis, with consequences if you default such as recovery, court, reposession, bankruptcy.
* You may be asked to pay back the principal on a trigger (e.g. margin call) depending on the contract, or you may have to pay towards it each month (repayment mortgage)
"Tech Debt":
* No pressure to repay
* There is arguably a recurring cost to having bad structure, but this cost varies based on the amount of activity on the codebase. No new features and only security bug fixes = very little interest and no new tech debt. This is unlike regular debt.
* Can't really be measured accurately (like real debt).
* If the company is sold it is not on the books.
Debt: * Interest is due on a periodic basis, with consequences if you default such as recovery, court, reposession, bankruptcy. * You may be asked to pay back the principal on a trigger (e.g. margin call) depending on the contract, or you may have to pay towards it each month (repayment mortgage)
"Tech Debt": * No pressure to repay * There is arguably a recurring cost to having bad structure, but this cost varies based on the amount of activity on the codebase. No new features and only security bug fixes = very little interest and no new tech debt. This is unlike regular debt. * Can't really be measured accurately (like real debt). * If the company is sold it is not on the books.
So it's sort of like debt, but not exactly.