UX debt behaves like financial debt:

the longer you ignore it, the more “interest” you pay.

Early on, a missing token or mismatched button style seems harmless.

But each sprint it:

• Adds duplicate code engineers must maintain
• Expands QA scope because inconsistencies multiply
• Slows onboarding as rules become tribal knowledge
• Creates refactor requirements that nobody scoped

So dev hours spent fixing “small UI issues” steadily rise, while velocity falls.