As with monetary debt,3(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_debt#cite_note-Managing_Technical_Debt-3) if technical debt is not repaid, it can accumulate 'interest', making it harder to implement changes. Unaddressed technical debt increases software entropy. Similarly to monetary debt, technical debt is not necessarily a bad thing, and sometimes (e.g., as a proof-of-concept) is required to move projects forward. On the other hand, some experts claim that the "technical debt" metaphor tends to minimize the ramifications, which results in insufficient prioritization of the necessary work to correct it
In open-source software, postponing sending local changes to the upstream project is a form of technical debt