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Comment by shp0ngle | Hacker News Reader

Money don’t grow on trees.

If there was a magic way to make money without work, everyone would be doing it.

I am with you on this! I know a lady with some 20 rental apartments. Income is far from passive, managing (and suing not paying) tenants takes some serious time. Some tech workers have huge stock portfolios, however taking care of stocks takes some time.

I met many people in my life, rich and poor, but nobody was lying on the couch and enjoying rain of 500 euro banknotes. Maybe it’s an American thing.

Taking care of your own trees also takes time. For one, you need to put them in good soil, water them perhaps, keep them clear from pests, trim them, etc.

There are people who make passive income. Not everyone makes passive income. Your reply is meaningless.

> Your reply is meaningless.

I think the parent commenter's point (and apologies if this is a mis-read, shp0ngle) is that passive income is a fantasy unless you're just stashing extra money in investment vehicles. That doesn't sound like the situation nada_ss finds themselves in.

I bought a fantasy novel recently that was written in 1998. Turns out the author wrote 11 more novels in this series which was a big part of why I chose it. The most recent novel came out in 2021. She no doubt will receive a tiny amount of income in 2022 from my purchase in 2022 stemming from work she completed in 1998. I would classify that as passive income but of course is it really? Would the book have even been on the shelf at Books A Million if she has stopped writing in 2000? Hard to say but I think most people would consider that passive income earned this year.

CharlesW's interpretation was off, but still it's not truly passive until she stops writing books.

Continuously writing books for 20 years is work. The first book would probably have significantly less sales if the author didn't invest time or money in marketing and sequels for 20 years.

The root comment would still hold true:

> If there was a magic way to make money without work

Start a big bank. The bank can borrow money into existence, and loan it out and make passive income from the interest payments which, by the way, is money that does not exist. Magic. All the big banks do it, and if your big bank fails the government might bail you out.

Exactly, any investment that has a really high rate of return (moneywise or laborwise) will get flooded almost immediately, crushing the returns

Everyone has a pen, but not everyone is a writer.

money doesn't grow on trees but you can grow trees and sell them.

it's almost like entropy, the universe is against you

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