[bdunn]

There are quite a few points of contention to be made with your comment:

First off, to group "24/7 on-call Wordpress support" with passive income is... well, a very, very long stretch.

on things which have real social purpose and meaning and value to their creators or users

"Someone I can turn to when my website blows up because of this new plugin I added" most assuredly provides meaning and value to WP Curve's customers. Also, I'm not sure who's exploiting who in that relationship.

But you're right, Dan should shut down WP Curve and the customers who are paying him real money to solve real problems and focus on more meaningful things.. like maybe building a social discovery app.