The phrase gets used with a looseness worth unpicking. Honest passive income is basically two things: what capital produces (dividends, interest, coupons, net rent) and what a previously built asset produces (a book, a product, a license), which is also rarely as passive as advertised.
The arithmetic is unforgiving in the first case: $1,000 a month of passive income at a 4% withdrawal rate requires roughly $300,000 of capital. There is no shortcut, and any offer promising that income on far less is promising a risk it is not mentioning.
The useful framing is not "I want passive income" but "I want my assets to cover a growing share of my fixed costs". Same idea, measurable, and it does not depend on anyone selling you a method.