In short
Every shortcut you take in a file is a decision you agreed to make later. Here is how the bill arrives.
Design debt gets talked about like it is a mess in a file. It is not. It is a list of decisions somebody chose not to make, sitting quietly until the day they all come due at once.
Where it collects
It collects wherever a screen was shipped before anyone agreed what the pattern should be. The second screen copies the first, the third copies the second, and by the tenth nobody can change any of them without changing all of them.
The fix is not a cleanup sprint. The fix is deciding the pattern the first time it appears, even when deciding is slower than copying.
