If your requests come in hard and fast then you’ll have a big problem with tech debt, but if you can schedule it properly you can do it as a part of adding functionality and people tend to be happy, because once the functionality is in it can be enhanced much more quickly.
On one project where we seemed to handle engineering strategy well, one of the considerations we'd make is whether paying the tech debt would accompany an inflow of cash or not. If it didn't we'd better tackle it now so we don't bleed out.
It's probably another way to say "spend money to make money". Management is more willing to spend out of a problem when they've had a fresh fix.
The trick is, though, can you pay down that debt fast enough that the customers don't get upset while waiting. If someone's firing up a big ad push you'd better be prepared. And people, like me, who get caught flat-footed once (or have friends who were), don't want it to happen a second time. So they get opinions on 'last responsible moment' that might differ from the idealists.