Good discussion. The problem is the term "passive income" has been misused. It started of being more about how to make money on your own without having to clock in at work, but somehow turned into "make lots of money with zero effort", which is of course a joke. All income falls on a sliding scale of active to passive - an day job where you are paid by the hour is 100% active, investing in index funds is very passive (but doesn't generate much income), and many things in between.

I have a real estate portfolio of 7 rental houses and one commercial property. It took me hundreds of hours to learn about it, find and buy good properties, but now I spend just a couple hours per month keeping the books is all. Lots of work up front, but then pretty passive down the road.

Active stock picking can be the same. You may spend hundreds of hours researching stocks before you buy a good one, then you can sit back and watch the price increase as you collect dividend payments.

So not "get rich with no work", but investing is often "put in some upfront work and then reap the rewards for years to come" with little maintenance.

Of course starting a business of any kind is an active source of income.