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Comment by superconductor | Hacker News Reader

I tried doing the passive income thing. I set up dozens of blogs with adsense, amazon affiliate links and sold software.

What happened surprised me: it was soul-crushing. I felt dirty. Turns out that meaningful work is what fulfills me. Making "free" hands-off money doesn't excite or inspire me. Totally a learning experience.

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Have had the same experience. I also think the internet is evolving in such a way (mostly importance of reputation) that being the 'best craftsman' in a niche is being rewarded again. Much like in the old village life where you made a good living by being the best baker in town.

Remember the "hacker" part of PIH. While the content approach is a passive income technique, pretty sure the author meant building a SaaS app that has recurring billing.

Exactly. Some people keep promoting the "virtue" of having a passive income and being able to not work at all. It seems to me that they can't wrap their heads around the idea that some actually enjoying working on their projects every day, building something and improving from day to day.

For me, the goal of passive income is flexibility. Sure, I would hope that I wouldn't have to work if I didn't want to. But it would also mean I could work on anything that interested me. I have a huge list of projects I've wanted to work on forever but will never have time if I don't find a way into financial flexibility.

this seems to be a psychology-of-the-individual thing; i would love to have a passive income stream so that i could do meaningful open-source work without having to worry about whether it paid me enough.

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