Yes, you can make money pursuing your passion. But the point is that there are a majority of people that are not interested in programming and have no passion.

Their real passion is a having a band, or hiking, traveling, etc. And programming is just a way to fund those activities.

Others feel that programming is something that unimportant people do because they feel entitled to become managers. But why would a person like to work for a person they can't learn anything from? a person that looks down on their job? Noone wants a manager like that.