> Until the "nothing" gets filled in with the equivalent of a salaried wage, I'm not a fan of calling it "passive income".
Would you also consider creating a static "how to" site that generates revenue from ads to not be passive income? I think that's the most basic example of what HN considers passive.
I think it depends where you are in the cycle. If you just finished putting in 50hrs of work, and have so far made $100, I wouldn't consider that true passive income. Fast-forward a year, and your income from the site has surpassed $2500 (the equivalent of your salaried wage for those hours), with minimal additional effort - now you are making passive income.
We're just defining words here anyway. I think a core component of what people think of when they think "passive income" is making a disproportional amount of income relative to effort put in. Until those proportions get dis'ed, you're just working at a sub-optimal job.
Would you also consider creating a static "how to" site that generates revenue from ads to not be passive income? I think that's the most basic example of what HN considers passive.