Code duplication is far cheaper than the wrong abstraction

The article argues that creating the wrong abstraction is more costly than tolerating code duplication. It describes how programmers often extract duplication into a reusable abstraction, but when new requirements emerge that don't perfectly fit the original design, subsequent developers add parameters and conditionals, eventually making the code incomprehensible and difficult to modify. The author recommends that when facing a problematic abstraction, developers should inline the code back into its callers and start fresh rather than continuing to patch the flawed abstraction.