Everyone talks about blogging, commerce, using referral systems, bounty, campaign signatures, streaming, selling courses, offering their services in gaming, camwhore. But there are other not so known ways to generate/earn cryptos?
It should be through the use staking pool. What you have been mentioned in your post is about how to generate a token through the use of your effort. But in staking and masternode and your coin itself will generate a new coin. that can be considered as a difficult way because you must own some amounts of token to meet the criteria.
So many people not known about this and they are all choosing the easiest way like the marketing campaign and promotion to some projects.
This must match what you are asking in your question. Become a validator or node can also be considered as a not so popular ways to get crypto.