Only 10% of traders make profit from trading, the rest always run at loss in the market. This is because trading is so complex and plays with our emotions. To be a professional trader is not easy but to be a long term hodler is easy as long as you don't over invest in bitcoin but use only your discretionary income to invest in bitcoin.
Hodlers are making profits with ease because their bitcoin portfolio generates profits for them overtime. Unlike traders that will pass through stress and emotions and might still run at loss. Trading is risky and can lead to great loss, but hodli is easy and limits losses, since the price of bitcoin increases overtime.
In theory it is always easier to hold than to trade but in practice and in my opinion. Both methods have their pros and cons, and making money from bitcoin has never been easy. It sounds very easy, but being able to hold bitcoin until it becomes profitable takes several years or more, and as far as I can see, not too many people can do it. I don't find it as simple as you say.
In short, depending on each person's interests and abilities, choose the most suitable method of making money. Holding or trading, both are ways of making profits in the market and there are no bad methods only poor player skills.