Hunting for Airdrop rewards is no longer as simple as in previous cycles. You need to put in the initial effort and money to become a real user of the project to get an airdrop, and most of the rewards are not much.
I am guessing this is to regulate and control the amount of airdrops projects are to give. I guess a lot of investors more leaned on towards airdrops and now projects are trying to give as little as possible so they require anyone who wants to participate to do some tasks or do other things before they get said airdrops. This might lead to disinterest and discouragement from investors.