Passive income was definitely a thing before Ferriss. I actually admire Ferriss because what he describes is building the simplest thing that actually delivers a valuable product to a customer, whereas most others who I've seen try to explain "passive income" for the masses just recommend writing ebooks. People have been googling about "how to make money online" as long as Google has been a thing, and after researching for a while you are likely to end up finding advice about creating "information products". This is because, for most people, writing and selling an overpriced niche ebook online is one of the few borderline legitimate ways they can make better-than-McJob money if they do a good job on market research and actually possess some knowledge that's valuable to others.
There was an epidemic of this among leaders of the "minimalist lifestyle" fad a while back: Leo Babauta, Tammy Strobel, Ev Bogue, and others. I'm sure it's cropped up in other niches too. That's where I learned about it.
I think the reason passive income gets a bad rap, in this forbes piece and others, is that most people don't possess the skills to create a passive income source that is not a scam. Paying $1/page for an ebook that doesn't deliver leaves a bad taste in peoples' mouths. But simple SaaS businesses can absolutely create real value to others without significant maintenance as many people in this thread have already described.
There was an epidemic of this among leaders of the "minimalist lifestyle" fad a while back: Leo Babauta, Tammy Strobel, Ev Bogue, and others. I'm sure it's cropped up in other niches too. That's where I learned about it.
I think the reason passive income gets a bad rap, in this forbes piece and others, is that most people don't possess the skills to create a passive income source that is not a scam. Paying $1/page for an ebook that doesn't deliver leaves a bad taste in peoples' mouths. But simple SaaS businesses can absolutely create real value to others without significant maintenance as many people in this thread have already described.