For many people who have nothing and earn little, being free of debt is an absolute core value, far beyond the mere numberical delta. To people who perceive zero debt as a central measure of personal achievement and self-valuation ("at least I am not in debt"), going deep into the negative for some quasi-entrepreneurial investment that may or may not pay off feels extremely wrong.

People on HN may ridicule them for being stuck in an optimization for a terribly low local maximum, but the danger of feeling "rich" on a fat loan is real: "if it's ok to burn through a decade worth of low wages to get to where I can easily pay it pack, what difference does it make if I burn through a few years more?" Valuing debtlessness is the established safeguard against that and going deep to exit high would be perceived as close to amoral by their peers.