Cleff and I clearly agree that these things are all debt. And they're all in the technology implementation. I understand why Cleff wants a specific word for his sort of debt, and why he'd like to call tech debt. but I think that particular battle was lost more than a decade ago.
The reason is that it's pretty much irrelevant afterwards. If I need to work with some code but that will be slower because it needs to be cleaned up, I don't particularly care why it's a mess. I'm not going to indulge in corporate archaeology to figure out exactly what the intent is.
I also believe you're wrong about the linked article. For example: "Bringing that back to tech debt: a simple kind of high-interest short-term debt would be committing code without tests or documentation." Per Cleff, that isn't tech debt. (I suspect Ward would more flexible here.) But to this author and for the common usage, it is.
The reason is that it's pretty much irrelevant afterwards. If I need to work with some code but that will be slower because it needs to be cleaned up, I don't particularly care why it's a mess. I'm not going to indulge in corporate archaeology to figure out exactly what the intent is.
I also believe you're wrong about the linked article. For example: "Bringing that back to tech debt: a simple kind of high-interest short-term debt would be committing code without tests or documentation." Per Cleff, that isn't tech debt. (I suspect Ward would more flexible here.) But to this author and for the common usage, it is.