Steve Pavlina has written a post called 10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job. Apart from being slightly abrasive in parts (which I have to believe is intentional), it's a really good read and makes you question the wisdom of what you do for 8 or so hours of each weekday.
I've heard most of these arguments before - mainly while studying at QUT's Brisbane Graduate School of Business (BSGB). I distinctly remember listening to a lecture from the current Executive in Residence Anne McKevitt (fairly famous in the UK) where she raised many of these points herself.
The main idea is a simple one: why work for someone else, trading time for money, when you can earn passive income 24/7 by providing a service that runs itself? The advent of the Internet has made this a much more feasible prospect. If you can set up a web-based service that generates income without needing much maintenance, then you're on your way. It's been done countless times (think eBay, Amazon, del.icio.us, etc.), so you can't say it's not possible.
I remember reading about a teenager who set up a website called The Million Dollar Homepage. Really simple idea. The site consists of a single image, 1000x1000 pixels in size. You can put whatever you want in this image (within reason obviously), with links, and it'll cost you $1 per pixel. It's win-win: Businesses can advertise very cheaply, and this guy gets a million dollars. It was sold out when I looked a minute ago.
Of course, to make this passive-income thing work, you need an idea and sufficient commitment to see it through. Every time I hear about this kind of thing I think, "Yeah, awesome! I'm going to do that!". And every time, it fades into obscurity. I've still got some ideas, don't get me wrong, but I've never been excited enough to see them through. One day...
And no, I'm not telling you what my ideas are :).
Damo