Any workaround a tech company implements is often formalized as a loan. This is the essence of the concept of 'technical debt,' introduced by programmer Ward Cunningham over thirty years ago, and it is one of the smartest financial terms borrowed from the world of software.
The author notes that in a previous column, he argued that companies sell products before they have time to create them. These 'workarounds' remain in the system after the deal is closed, continuing to accrue interest until payments become impossible. This is the second of three columns on the trap of short-termism: how one habit—choosing a quick fix over a long-term solution—infiltrates business and reaches customers who cannot be lost.
Technical debt represents the cost of choosing a quick patch over the right one: it is code written to meet demonstration deadlines, architecture that has never been reviewed after it 'worked,' a system that was never updated because the specialists who understood it left, or an integration bolted on instead of being designed initially, as well as a culture that encourages 'just do something quickly.'
Each such workaround saves time today but imposes a tax burden on every job associated with it tomorrow. This tax is real, even when invisible, because it is rarely reflected in expense reports. It manifests as a gradual complication of everything. It is the only debt that can go unrecorded for years until it begins to affect all other aspects.
The tangled system feeds itself: the next change is also made quickly and carelessly because a proper fix first requires untangling the previous mess. Complexity breeds greater complexity, and every new feature requires adding another 'hack' on top of the old one.
Engineers capable of fixing problems are too busy maintaining the fragile system and have almost no time for business development. This is the cumulative effect: the debt not only grows, but it reduces the company's ability to repay it.
Symptoms of technical debt can be noticed long before anyone names it. For example, costs that should decrease with scale begin to rise. Simple functions take an unrealistically long time. Releasing new products turns from a routine process into something people fear. Furthermore, good engineers leave because nobody likes spending days fixing someone else's workarounds, taking with them the only knowledge of why the system is structured the way it is, which exacerbates the debt.
South Africa has a rich set of examples of this problem: banks use some of the most advanced digital services built on core systems created in the Cobol language decades ago, demonstrating the ability to service debt for a very long time, but at the cost of huge and constant expenses. The public sector is also a museum of this disease: systems cannot interact with each other, budgets are allocated for creation but not for maintenance, and the same lesson is repeated every time—the cheapest request leads to the most expensive debt.
The billing situation of telecommunication companies is considered one of the most 'debt-ridden' software in the world, as new billing methods were constantly 'bolted on' to a system that was not originally intended to sell such services.
Technical debt is a management problem disguised as an engineering task. It accumulates due to incentives that exist above the engineers solving the problem. Since the debt is invisible in financial statements, it is easy to postpone. A manager who postpones the decision often gets promoted before the bill arrives. And the one who insists on paying it down is forced to defend a quiet quarter without having anything brilliant to show.
As a result, taking on debt is rewarded, while paying it down leads to accusations of excessive slowness. This asymmetry, rather than a lack of qualified engineers, is the reason for such a large volume of this debt. However, some types of debt are reasonable: a conscious workaround to test market interest is good business, as building the perfect thing from the start would be a waste. Not all debt should be paid off, just as not all financial debt needs to be closed. It is important to know the difference.
The problem is not the debt itself, but unmanaged debt—that taken without a decision, that no one monitors, and that is serviced accidentally. Reasonable debt is a conscious choice that can be seen on a list with a repayment plan. Most technical debt is the residue of hundreds of small panic decisions that no one recorded.
The solution is not a heroic complete rewrite of the code, as this often just refinances the debt under worse conditions. Instead, meticulous discipline is required, consisting of treating quality as a continuous commitment, not a temporary stage. This includes allocating real resources for refactoring and updates in every cycle, ensuring the visibility of the debt's cost to budget managers, and refusing workarounds at the sales stage, where, as noted earlier, most of this debt is born.
Defending long-term interests against quarterly goals is a management task, as no one else in the company is obligated to do it. Sometimes discipline means saying no. When it becomes clear that the client only wants a quick fix and will blame the company for the mess left by these 'hacks,' the correct answer is a polite refusal. Business is a partnership. If one side seeks to gain an advantage over the other, the deal is not worth it.
And here is the catch: the final bill for technical debt is rarely paid only by the company. It is paid by the customer—a product that slowly degrades, breaks easily, and causes distrust. Customers do not send reminders like creditors; they simply leave quietly. And that is what the next part of the series will discuss.
Due to a global shortage of RAM spurred by the demands of artificial intelligence, the cost of various gadgets, from Apple's MacBook line to Xbox and PlayStation consoles, has significantly increased in South Africa, making 2026 a challenging period for buyers.
The main culprit behind this phenomenon is the global scarcity of RAM, unified memory, and storage space, which is caused by the insatiable demand of AI workflows. Modern users require more memory to run resource-intensive applications such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Claude, and Perplexity AI.
Although Apple was the last major tech corporation to raise prices, it managed to avoid an 'RAM apocalypse' until recently thanks to long-term supply contracts signed in advance. However, over the past year, Windows-based laptops have shown multiple price increases, which briefly made Apple a more attractive brand, but now the old order has been restored, and Apple is once again setting high prices for its hardware.
For instance, the 13-inch MacBook Air M5, which cost R19,999 before the recent price hike, is now selling for R26,499, representing a sharp jump of over 32%. Furthermore, Apple's most affordable 2026 model, the MacBook Neo, has risen from an initial price of R11,999 to R13,999, an increase of R2,000 or 16.67% in a short time. This means that the entry-level MacBook Air is almost twice as expensive as the Neo, and budget buyers are likely to opt for the Neo despite performance compromises.
The problem is not limited to computers. The Xbox Series S and Series X consoles, released about six years ago, have also seen price increases. The Series S model launched at $300 (equivalent to approximately R5,100 at the standard exchange rate), and the Series X cost $500 (about R8,600). Although local import costs initially made them slightly more expensive in South Africa, the rise was not as dramatic. The author purchased an Xbox Series S in March 2023 for R5,999, but today the same console costs R9,998, an increase of R4,000 for a six-year-old device.
Instead of the expected price drop, the price continues to climb. To get the top-tier Series X, it will cost around R14,999. When the author bought the Series S, the Series X price of R11,000 seemed too high given the R5,000 difference between the models, which would allow buying almost two Series S units for the price of one. Microsoft is not alone in this situation: Sony's base PlayStation 5 Digital Edition has risen from $400 at launch in 2020 to $500 by 2025. PlayStation maintains its lead in the console race, with about 75 million units sold compared to 31 million for Xbox, meaning millions of gamers are feeling the same pressure.
Thus, purchasing almost any new electronics during 2026 will be expensive. However, there is uncertainty about when prices might stabilize, making the current moment both the best and worst time to make a purchase.
The debt burden of households in South Africa has significantly increased, reaching a colossal figure of 2.4 trillion rand, forcing citizens to reassess their financial management strategies and pay more attention to savings.
As South African families face the rising cost of living, the debt burden has reached an alarming level of 2.4 trillion rand. According to the latest data from the National Credit Regulator, this serious trend has resulted in 4.9 million consumers having damaged credit records, and another 6.3 million struggling to repay their debts.
Tina Manyanya, a representative of the short-term lender Wonga, advises that despite the seemingly insurmountable debt situation, small and regular changes can lead to significant improvements over time. She emphasizes that improving one's financial standing does not happen instantly but requires gradual and targeted efforts to increase resilience against financial pressure.
To help South Africans achieve financial stability, Manyanya proposed five actionable methods that are easy to integrate into daily life. Firstly, it is necessary to understand where the money is going: she recommends analyzing bank statements, creating a realistic monthly budget, and prioritizing essential expenses over non-essential ones. This approach helps identify unnecessary spending that can be directed towards debt repayment.
Secondly, when interest rates decrease, one should maintain the same monthly payment amount. This ensures that a larger principal amount is repaid, which ultimately leads to a reduction in the total amount of interest paid and a faster closure of loans. Thirdly, to avoid accumulating high-interest credit card debt, it is recommended to pay off the entire balance each month, rather than just the minimum payment, to prevent compound interest from growing.
Fourthly, Manyanya presents the 'snowball method' for managing multiple debts: one must first focus on paying off the smallest debts with high interest rates, such as credit cards and personal loans. After closing them, the funds previously allocated to these payments can be used to tackle larger debts, such as car loans or mortgages. Finally, it is crucial to create and adhere to a realistic monthly budget, as such a plan is not merely a restriction but an active tool for financial management, promoting conscious spending and progress toward financial goals.
Manyanya stresses that the National Savings Month is a timely opportunity for South Africans to review and improve their financial habits. She concludes that any positive step—whether reducing debt, starting a saving habit, or increasing financial literacy—brings a person closer to greater economic security.
