While some content creators can share useful tips, King says other passive income influencers have an ulterior motive. "Many influencers quickly realised that there's money to be made by selling courses about how to generate passive income – which, ironically, generates passive income for these influencers."

Blake drew similar conclusions from his foray into phone farming. Although he now has a successful passive income source through advertising revenue on his blog, he believes that much of this content sells young people something that is too good to be true, creating something of a passive income pyramid scheme.

"You see content creators getting rich by selling the dream of passive income, while leaving out some critical details," he says.