No, there are active adapters as well.
I use to be into RC flight. Back then, the controllers could plug into a PC via a serial port. I had to buy an active adapter to use it since I didn't have a PC with a serial port, anymore.
Note the above is going from usb peripheral to serial port on the pc with no drivers.
USB to serial adapter are a dime a dozen but they do the opposite of this. The usb side is on the pc which has drivers to handle a lot of the complexity.