The "Passive Income" trap ate a generation of entrepreneurs

Post by icedchai » Fri, Apr 17, 2026, 3:51 AM UTC

Raidion wrote: post #119

toast0 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The way it shakes out is that there's no widely accessible way of escaping actual, ongoing work, which is what unmotivated people actually hear behind the words "passive income." 25x expenses in s&p 500 works ok. (Adjust the multiplier for your level of pessimism) Funding it isn't easy, but save a good amount of your income for a few decades and control your expenses and you can get there.

Creating an additional 30%-50% on top of whatever a normal person would consider passive income in order to actually have passive income is NOT a realistic option for a huge % of the population.

Post by lotsofpulp » Fri, Apr 17, 2026, 3:59 AM UTC

atomicfiredoll wrote: post #159

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #74

This article really felt like a misdiagnosis to me. Sure, a lot of these people were just buying hype from these "get rich from drop shipping!" influencers, just like a million other suckers who got dollar signs in their eyes with real estate schemes, pyramid sale schemes, yada yada, a tale as old as time. I don't think this "passive income" trap is really anything new, and I don't think it was some unique thing that…

My current read of the situation is similar. If you go to other countries, there are slews of small shops, even in run down areas. On top of that, in places within Asia, the malls are also open and full of regional chains. It also feels like there's such a wider variety of certain goods available, because the little bakeries are doing their own thing, while in the U.S. seemingly everybody is eating Costco danishes. "…

Post by dasil003 » Fri, Apr 17, 2026, 4:04 AM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #132

mtlynch wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You rarely see anything more than a couple hundred bucks a month. There are notable exceptions, but unfortunately a lot of those notable exceptions are scammy, spammy business models. I suspect this is largely sampling bias. I host meetups for indie founders, and several attendees earn their living through solo businesses. When I go to conferences like Microconf, I meet lots more. The problem with measuring financi…

I note neither your post or the one you replied to contain any quantitative data about how many profitable solo businesses there are.

Post by Marsymars » Fri, Apr 17, 2026, 4:19 AM UTC

redwood wrote: post #109

Marsymars wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One thing the author does NOT see, however, is that the local folks doing all the hard work like mowing lawns, building furniture, etc. are in absolute panic over "AI" because their niche little lawn mowing/car washing/house cleaning business has been determined to be irrelevant by ChatGPT, etc. How does what ChatGPT thinks about lawnmowing matter? Like, specifically, who's going to be mowing the lawns if it's not…

Sounds like he means the methods that they used to use to advertise to find customers online have broken

Post by bryanrasmussen » Fri, Apr 17, 2026, 4:30 AM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #74

This article really felt like a misdiagnosis to me. Sure, a lot of these people were just buying hype from these "get rich from drop shipping!" influencers, just like a million other suckers who got dollar signs in their eyes with real estate schemes, pyramid sale schemes, yada yada, a tale as old as time. I don't think this "passive income" trap is really anything new, and I don't think it was some unique thing that…