You say it like my definition is the weird and unconventional one. The term literally says "passive" income. The conventional definition is "you did something once and profit from it over time without putting any or very little effort".

In case of your weird and unnatural example, if the sale process is automated, and you can go do other work in the meantime or just sit in an arm chair and sip beer while watching TV, then yes, it's passive income.

Your example also implies that you had some other income to sustain you while you were working on these widgets and you shifted the income from what could've been active income to be passive income later.
In other words, you invested into these widgets and are now receiving dividends.

[–] Philosoraptor@hexbear.net 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

What I'm trying to tease out here is whether or not you think that passive income just means income for labor that is temporally separated from payment, which it seems like you do. That seems like not a particularly useful category of cases to talk about, at least to me. I don't really think there's much point in arguing about the "standard" definition, because it's a buzzword, not a precisely defined technical term.

The complaints on this thread are mostly treating "passive income" as a synonym for "rent seeking" (which is a rigorously defined technical term). Your definition includes things that aren't rent seeking, and just involve getting paid in the future for labor you did today. Again, I'm not saying your definition is wrong (because there's no precise definition to be wrong about), but it's talking past the other criticisms on this thread.