I see technical debt differently. Technical debt is something you take on in exchange for moving faster. Maybe you skipped writing unit tests. Maybe you didn't respond to all the style feedback, or even do a code review. But at the time you make the choice, you should know that you're borrowing time from your future self in order to move faster now.
Like real life monetary debt, technical debt has 2 aspects: the principle and the interest. Sometimes the interest ends up being variable rate and backbreaking for your project - you should have written those tests up front and saved yourself a lot of time. Sometimes the whole project dies before you pay back the debt - you go bankrupt but it's no big deal, your creditors are friendly. In either case, the principle usually isn't smaller when you go to address it. You're just delaying payment in favor of speed.
What the original artical addresses are several aspects that I might call "technical assets" that have depreciated significantly. That kludge, if it wasn't done intentionally, isn't debt - it's now an asset. If you didn't have a plan to pay it off in the future, you've already bought it and now you need to replace it. And the replacement is very expensive. That is a technical investment you're deciding to make. You aren't just paying off debt at that point, it's a whole new capital expense.
Like real life monetary debt, technical debt has 2 aspects: the principle and the interest. Sometimes the interest ends up being variable rate and backbreaking for your project - you should have written those tests up front and saved yourself a lot of time. Sometimes the whole project dies before you pay back the debt - you go bankrupt but it's no big deal, your creditors are friendly. In either case, the principle usually isn't smaller when you go to address it. You're just delaying payment in favor of speed.
What the original artical addresses are several aspects that I might call "technical assets" that have depreciated significantly. That kludge, if it wasn't done intentionally, isn't debt - it's now an asset. If you didn't have a plan to pay it off in the future, you've already bought it and now you need to replace it. And the replacement is very expensive. That is a technical investment you're deciding to make. You aren't just paying off debt at that point, it's a whole new capital expense.