is paying down tech debt always worthwhile?

Note

This is a bit of a work in progress, as I try to figure out my opinion

I was complaining one day that because we were too busy with other projects, instead of doing things The Right Way the business was going to hack something together. And then by the time we got around to doing it The Right Way it would be a lot of work for no business value!

But then I realized: if there was truly no business value, why would we do it? Fuck my ego.

Which isn't to say there actually is no benefit. But you have to identify what the benefit is and push for that. And maybe there's not! That would be okay too. Or maybe the benefit is small enough that it's not worth prioritizing right now.

Regardless of the outcome, the exercise is valuable.