When anybody are outside of any field then he cannot proper guide the others. On what basis you you labeling bounty and Airdrop waste of time? No luck need in both but you have to do little research and try to obtain high criteria for high value airdrop. Honestly I started my crypto journey through airdrops and then I become a part of this forum. Mostly user joining just promotional airdrop which are mostly fake/scam or low value due to no big partnerships and liquidity after listing.
I also started with airdrops, but the few that I took part in turned out to be scam and that really affected my mindset towards them. I still have several airdrop wallet that I participated in some years ago and up till this day they have not been listed while the few that later got listed are worth nothing so I just had to leave them in my wallet rather than waste my gas fee trying to swap them.
And it’s just like you said, back then I didn’t know how to research on a project or what to watch out for when learning about a new project and I guess that’s the same issue with the Op, even if airdrop could be profitable will the Op know how to do his research properly?