I didn't mean the debt would go unpaid by the project being abandoned. I meant more that you take on debt in every choice you make, and many of these "debts" will not come due for anyone.
Consider, many folks that are writing PHP level apps do not know how the full HTTP stack works. Expand that, most people writing web apps of any flavor have a small understanding of this.
For most of us, this is not a big deal and never becomes due. We took on some technical debt by trusting the frameworks that we have chosen to handle them for us.
However, if any of us find ourselves at the scale of Facebook, Twitter, etc, then we find that suddenly a lot of the tiny details of HTTP start to matter. To the point that solutions that minimize resources and the like suddenly matter. Heavily.
All too often, however, people use this argument in favor of "shiney new framework." Taking on struts was technical debt because you offloaded much of your core to them. I question whether many companies truly needed to ditch fully working struts implementations in favor of "new shiney," though.
And then, this metaphor can be extended in amusing ways. There was the assertion that git took on unnecessary "technical debt" by remaining in C instead of C++. Instead, it can also be seen more as they took on the cost of not having abstractions unto themselves.
So, my assertion is that for most projects, the benefit of a technical debt never outweighs the downside. Not because the project will "go away" but because it just is never really a problem.
Your gambling example is amusing to me. Few people will ever consider that healthy debt. It is one thing to have a sponsor, and another to have an addiction.