Hey Peter. I had that reaction, too: Why would you ever discuss technical debt with a customer? But then I realized, we are talking about customers who buy our products Ben is thinking of customers who contract with him to develop a product. At some point, he has to explain, yes, the app I delivered works, but if you want me (or anyone) to develop it further, there's some code that needs to be refactored first. Something like that. ("Refactored" has fewer negative connotations than "cleaned up".)