That's where "excessive technical debt" comes into play.

My spouse actually deals with this more than I do. She's a product owner/analyst in international e-commerce, a very deep subject/domain expert in a narrow field. Customers, not really understanding the complexities of the domain, ask for things that are often technically impossible, illegal, or self-destructive. But she's serving as a first line of defense for engineers, educating sales reps and customers (and executives) about the nature of their business, and what can/should/shouldn't be done.