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One of the reasons why I sometimes don't like the term "tech debt" is because you can take it on without knowing it. This is not true for financial debt. When you borrow money, even if you're not tracking it, the lender is 100% tracking the debt.

If you are in a team that discourages upgrading build systems, code reviews, code quality, testing etc there isn't really anyone that can point to instances where tech debt was accrued or how much there is.

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> This is not true for financial debt.

It is however true with assets; The housing crisis provides a great example; housing is an asset when it is always appreciating; however, if it starts depreciating (2008), it quickly became a liability.

This translates nicely to product. Each feature is an asset for selling; until it is found to have liabilities (pii data storage, inability to scale), then the feature either needs work again (requiring reinvestment) or removed (sold).

That's a good comparison I haven't thought of before!

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