It can’t be passive in the USA.
I can’t speak for other countries, but you are doing actions to get the income.
Even if you do it with a bot you had to set the bot up which makes it active.
That's not true at all. With your logic there's no such thing as passive income. I can't just passively open a bank account and collect interest because I had to open the bank account.
Please see the post above yours for HOW one would passively own a dropshipping business.
You don't run the bank you don't set the banks interest rate or policies = passive
You do run the bot as you set the parameters = active.
STOCK DIVIDENDS = PASSIVE
BANK INTEREST = PASSIVE
POS = passive
All of the above you don't control what they do for your income. All passive.
Running a bot you have active control of what it does for = active
In the USA you hire a person to work for you and run the business of drop shipping.
That means you are an employer you decide the work the worker does.
Once again you are actively participating in that business.
But rather than argue let me dust off my accounting texts. For USA law.
Give me a minute.
Renting a building you own is passive. It would be closer to your idea and still be passive.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/activeincome.asp#:~:text=Active%20income%2C%20generally%20speaking%2C%20is%20generated%20from%20tasks,money%20from%20a%20business%20without%20much%20active%20participation.
the definitions are from above.
passive
portfolio
active.
If you what to say the business is not materially run by you
you need to work under 500 hours in any manner on the business.
you need to hire a worker
you need to do less work than the guy you hired.
you need to work under 100 hours and the guy you hire has to work more hours than you.
so in theory you could maybe run it legally passive in the usa 🇺🇸.
but you need to have very good documentation.
If its small maybe you could do it.
The 100 hour rule it the one that can get you easy peasy. as it is under two hours a week which the burden of proof is on you.
If you run an ebay store and hire a guy to do the work and you sell very little you could do it.
If you sell a lot you will be hard pressed to prove the 100 hours in a year was kept.
So your method could work in the USA.
if you ran three ebay stores and hired three different people it might be easier to keep under the 100 hours per each store.
So yeah it would be hard but there is a way.