Buy payphones and retire

Retirement, Work, and “Retire to Work”

• Some posters say they enjoy work and don’t want to retire; others argue retirement is about no longer needing to work, not never working.
• Several note you might be forced to “retire” by health or cognitive decline.
• There’s tension between “work gives meaning” vs “retire early, then choose meaningful work on your own terms.”

Payphones, Ponzi Schemes, and MLMs

• The payphone pitch is seen as a classic “passive income” hook masking a Ponzi‑style fraud.
• Debate over terminology: some distinguish Ponzi schemes (fake returns) from MLMs/pyramid schemes (real product but exploitative structure), others see MLMs as “legalized Ponzi.”
• The thread notes multiple actual fraud convictions around similar schemes.

Vending Machines, Territory, and Crime

• Many point out vending and payphone revenue is far from passive: restocking, maintenance, cash handling, contracting for locations.
• Location contracts (airports, stations) are described as scarce and sometimes “mobbed up” or enforced with threats and vandalism.
• Money laundering via cash-heavy businesses (vending, car washes, laundromats, storage) is discussed; some argue online “wash trades” now make digital laundering easier.

Passive Income: Definitions, Morality, and Limits

• Competing definitions:
  • “Make something once and get paid for years” (books, software, royalties).
  • Pure capital returns (dividends, interest, rent).
  • Scammy “no work, high return” pitches.
• Ethical debate: is passive income just investing and risk‑taking, or inherently rent‑seeking and parasitic?
• Categorical imperative / “what if everyone did this?” is invoked; others say that misuses the philosophy.
• Several classify “passive income” as a near‑synonym for rent seeking when it adds no value, but not when capital or product genuinely enables others’ work.

Investing, Index Funds, and Real Estate

• Index funds are widely cited as the realistic, boring form of passive income; critics note long flat periods and inflation risk.
• Extended back‑and‑forth on whether governments implicitly prop up equity markets to protect older asset‑holders.
• Some describe multi‑family real estate syndications as genuinely high‑yield and low‑touch for limited partners; others counter that recent returns are unusual and policy‑dependent.

Personal Anecdotes and Cautionary Tales

• Stories of hacked payphones, physically stealing phones for tiny payouts, and vending routes that turned into hard labor.
• A detailed account of a failed dropshipping venture highlights how “soulless,” spammy businesses are demotivating even when they make some money.
• Multiple commenters close with a general rule: be extremely wary when someone tries to sell you a supposedly low‑risk, high‑return passive income opportunity.