In the old days, users used a platform only once and suddenly an airdrop was announced. That happened in the first one, the Uniswap airdrop.
Airdrops were here before the platform running Uniswap was launched. I can recall
ClamCoin made an airdrop to BTC, LTC, DOGE in 2014.
That is true but retrospective trend which is ofc current trend was started by uniswap.
The good times were when I was eligible for the Uniswap airdrop, at that time I was forced to sell my Uni for $20 because I needed money, but for me it was big enough money to support my life.
You did good, I sold it at ~$4.
I remember how simple airdrop before like filling up Google form and will eventually qualify for the drop and received tokens right away on registered address. But now its a mixture of social and many task before even get to be qualified and some even make it a competition that only top users were be rewarded at all. Now its a race to find which airdrop is good and will not create much dilution due to participants.
Airdrops are still like that, no effort whatsoever but people have made it so. For example, Uniswap, you used their dapp naturally and you were rewarded, same can be said about arbitrum/optimism, although farmers were still there but less compared to today.
If you don't try to farm projects and you engage in ecosystem normally, airdrops are still free with no effort involved.