Free crypto seemed reliable before and many people are getting huge rewards from participating in airdrops and bounties but now, that is uncertain. Why? They said it is free but must comply with a certain task which is really hard to accomplish and still wastes your time.
Now, if we think about making money, therefore, we also have to spend money to invest and stop relying on these free promotions as they only disappoint us. Think about that there is NO FREE now, nobody gives us money freely without doing something.
You didn't mention scammers who are always using the term 'Free rewards' or 'Free money' to trap people and scam them out of their hard-earned money because a human is always vulnerable to things that promise they will get something out of it and if that human is a newbie in a certain industry and don't have any knowledge, that becomes an easier target for these scammers because they know that mostly newbies think that they can get free things in the cryptocurrency industry.
A lot of newbies in the market are fooled by these scammers by creating fake websites providing high returns on their investments, or they tell them they are going to get free NFTs or stuff for free if they make a certain purchase or connect their wallets to their website and then they steal all their funds.