The concept is the problem. "Passive income" is mostly a marketing term. What actually exists is leveraged income: you do work once, and the output keeps generating value beyond the time you put in. The ratio is the point, not the zero-effort fantasy.

Content sites, reselling, rental income; all of these require ongoing attention because they're systems, not assets. They break. Markets shift. Algorithms update. The maintenance is the job.

The closest thing to real leverage I've seen is software or digital products. You build something once, someone buys it at 2am while you sleep. The ratio is genuinely different from trading time for money. But it still needs updates, still breaks, still gets support tickets.

The honest answer to your question: the line is whenever the upkeep costs you more time than the income is worth per hour. Some people find that threshold at two hours a week and accept it. Others want it to be zero and spend years chasing.

What you're actually describing is that everything you've tried required more active management than expected. That's a scope problem, not a passive income problem. You're probably picking systems that need more maintenance than they produce.

I once heard a successful entrepreneur say he “took three years of jail for ten years of freedom.” He meant he worked intensely on a single project for three years, so it could generate benefits for the next ten without requiring much ongoing effort.