Technical debt is dead. Welcome to the era of disposable software.

For decades, technical debt was the one sure thing in software. Every shortcut, every rushed release, every "we'll fix it later" was a loan against the future, and the future always collected.

All of that assumed software was built to last. We were trying to build cathedrals. (Poorly, I might add.)

Increasingly, we're putting up pop-up shops.

Built for a moment

AI coding assistants, no-code platforms, and fast deployment tools have changed the economics. Teams now spin up an app to solve an immediate need, knowing they will never refactor it or upgrade it. When it stops being useful, they retire it.

Why accrue debt on something you'll never maintain?

Infrastructure went through the same shift. We used to name our servers and nurse them for years. Now we run containers that live for minutes.

Speed changes the math

What once took weeks to build can now take hours. When replacing an app costs less than maintaining it, the rational move is to replace it. The speed of replacement is outrunning the growth of the debt.

It's like using a paper plate instead of washing a dish.

The Eiffel Tower problem

Here's the catch, and it's a big one. Temporary things have a way of sticking around.

The Eiffel Tower was built for the 1889 World's Fair under a twenty-year permit. The plan was to tear it down. Then it turned out to be handy as a radio antenna, and, well, it's still there.

Software does this constantly. The quick app someone built for one quarter's reporting becomes the system three departments depend on. Nobody decided that. Nobody documented it. And now the paper plate has been through the dishwasher forty times.

That's where hidden debt snowballs: when temporary becomes permanent by accident.

Disposable on purpose

• Give it an expiration date at birth. Decide when it will be reviewed or retired, and put that on a calendar.
• Keep the data durable. The app can be a paper plate. Your data, identities, and security controls cannot.
• Know what you've got. Keep an inventory, or you'll rebuild the sprawl problem one small app at a time.
• Promote deliberately. If a throwaway app proves it's needed for the long haul, rebuild it properly. That should be a decision, not an accident.

The bottom line

Traditional development assumed software would last forever. In the AI era, disposability is a feature.

To be precise about that headline: technical debt doesn't die of natural causes. Leave software alone and the debt is with you forever, growing as technology advances around it. What's new is that you can now eliminate it as a matter of strategy, by building software you fully intend to replace.

Where that isn't an option, in the core systems you'll keep for years, the debt still has to be paid down in installments.

For everything else: build it to be thrown away. Then throw it away.

A shorter version of this article first appeared on LinkedIn. Join the discussion there.