when I am supposed to fix tech debt? if every week there is another functionality going out that needs to be done yesterday? Do you think that I have to do it in my free time? Why should I even bother existing
You've just provides your personal assertion on a non-definition. Do you actually have an alternative definition that does not imply working lots of hours?
> I routinely come across developers who are the real deal: they’re conscientious and judicious in an unwavering way. They set a standard for themselves and do not compromise on it. Whether that’s a deliberate thing or whether they’re just built that way, it’s humbling to witness. If there’s a flaky test, they investigate it and fix it. If there’s a bug they spot in the wild, they make a ticket, and maybe even fix it then-and-there. If a new feature doesn’t gel well with the existing code, they refactor the code first rather than hacking the feature in. They’ll dive as far down the stack as necessary to get to the bottom of something. None of these things are necessary but great developers know that if they don’t address a problem early, and properly, it will only cost them more time in the long run. [... and more.]
This sounds like a great definition of not-lazy, and it does not mention long hours anywhere. My anecdotal experience is that I usually only have 20-35 not-lazy hours to give per week; any further hours per week are much less potent. Right now I'm working 24 hours per week and I think my employer is getting a great bargain: they don't have to pay me for hours that would likely be lazy.
I think you didn't understood the problem. No one is talking about penalizing people for only doing 40hours. The problem is that code quality is never prioritized or allocated time, so you either live with it or you go above and beyond and you deal it yourself on your own time. If your team is bounded to KPIs which you don't build up by refactoring bad code or diving deep into code issues or tracking weird elusive bugs, either you are forced to pull extra hours to no fall behind your team or your performance will clearly be awful.
This is not an inevitability, though. It depends on the temperament of the company you work for. A slight majority of the companies I've worked for didn't mind allocating time for that sort of thing at all (but they did expect you to make a business case for it).