The fungible nature of money helps explain why that is the case. One dollar bill is as good as another, something people know from handling cash. Paying down a debt is one kind of investment. Maybe it costs you $100/day to service that debt. If someone offers you a chance to invest that same money that you could have used to pay off the first debt and by investing earn divdends of $200/day, then the fact that one dollar is as good as another is what means that you should do it.

But even then you're also not (yet) getting to the heart of it: what is the value of tech debt? You still make it sounds like a damp rag dragging on you rather than an integral part of an energetic strategy. Money also gives people a clear analogy for why sometimes you want debt -- why and how it can be used as a tool.

In the swimming analogy I would say incurring a debt is like creating a wall that you can burst off of, at the cost of increasing the resistance of the water. Yeah it's a weird analogy. To be more literal, debt buys you the time you need to figure out the optimal direction and especially the critical priorities that will reward work -- will reward investment. It buys time to learn the requirements from experience, and for people to come to some community consensus as to which needs are most imminent. But only if the person managing the debt thinks of it as a tool to be used in this manner.