I think the article conflates two different things: the idea of passive income and the grift around it. Having a SaaS product that runs while you sleep isn't a

I think the article conflates two different things: the idea of passive income and the grift around it. Having a SaaS product that runs while you sleep isn't a trap — it's just good business design. The trap is paying $997 for a course on how to do it. And what makes it worse is the survivorship bias baked into these communities. The ones loudly promoting passive income strategies are almost always making their money teaching passive income — not from the strategies themselves. The actual successful indie founders I know are pretty quiet about it. The concept isn't broken; the ecosystem around selling the dream is.