Technical Debt

Technical debt is the future cost of choosing a quick or cheap way to build something now instead of the proper way. Like a loan, the shortcut helps you move fast today, but you pay interest later in extra time and trouble every time you work on that part.

It is like patching a roof with tape before a storm: sensible in the moment, but the real repair still has to happen, and it costs more the longer it waits. Technical debt matters because a business that never pays it down slowly grinds to a halt, as small changes start taking weeks instead of hours.