Airdrop is still a good option, but you need to spend time and money,
Most airdrops are for free, though? That is what makes them very appealing to people. They don’t really need to actually invest something to get back some profit. Although of course it’s only very rare that an airdrop actually gets value later on after its launch.
It is not really "free" when you think about it. It's free in the sense that you do not spend any money on it, but it is not free because you are spending your time on it, and maybe you do not spend much on a single one, like spend an hour on it at the very most it is not a lot, probably more like 15 minutes. Let's say it is half an hour, if you do not make any money from 100 of them but make money on a single one, you just spent 50+ hours of your life on this and got paid, if you work 50+ hours on anything else, you probably would make a lot more money instead.
This is why it is not free, you are working for less than 1 dollar per hour while doing it, and they know this and do not hire workers but just say "airdrop" in return, for their own made up token that they didn't spend a dime on to create and not even pay you in dollars.