I really need to emphasise, 'tech debt' does not imply 'without care'. Just to link to the last comment where I emphasised this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30286955

This is why I say it's fruitless to discuss this without making clear what concrete examples we're imagining when we say 'tech debt'. I'm almost certain that you and I are not thinking of remotely the same thing. 'Tech debt' is very different from plain old shitty code.