They don't until things break, your app can't handle the amount of requests coming in, can't insert and fetch data in a reasonable amount of time, etc.

It's at this point that shit falls apart and the manager starts to care about these technical choices and all of the time and money that will be needed to be spent to rewrite.

Call it maintenance costs if you want but those costs are directly affected by the technology decisions you make.

the end result of technical debt ==> maintenance costs makes it same enough.

Looking at things from the other side: being a manager and trying to sell projects to reduce technical debt is really freaking hard in a world of short-term outlooks and revolving door of CEOs that want to improve numbers this quarter or the next, not a few years down the road.

This is entirely true, but I have never worked with someone beyond the leader of my immediate who though the same. Most managers don't care what cruft is in there when it ships.