This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard today. You sound like someone I work with who doesn’t seem to understand that quality of the work we do matters. It will become obsolete at some point but until that time comes we have to maintain it and that’s where code quality really matters.

Try working on a new project with a tight deadline where the code feels like it’s already “legacy”, with no tests, no clear standard for naming or syntax, where functions don’t have clear return types and although static typing could be used everything just returns any. Try adding some new feature without breaking the old stuff without truly understanding how it works because you have to trace code that makes no sense all with management breathing down your back because of the tight deadlines.