You might just be getting it all wrong when you said not investing a dime, what about your time and energy? You also need megabits of data to login in, yes it is built in a form of game but directly you are investing your money on data, let alone the time and energy so you can see that you are very wrong in your perception as to this regards. However, it is anyone choice to participate in any airdrops irrespective of the fact that there is no guarantee towards whether there is going to be a payout or not, the end of every airdrops justify the means and the validity of the project.
I agree with you, many people do invest big parts of their days (with time and effort intact) in order to get the tasks and other things done, however, they do believe that there would be a golden allocation afterward, which isn't true lately.
Usually, there will be a guaranteed prize for you, but it is not what you hoped for, that's the issue.
People should understand this and go into the projects keeping these facts from start to finish.
This is actually what people thought by participating in that projects since they aim for profits. But they over expect on something especially when it gather hype since many think that this is the opportunity they are waiting for and they might earn a lot since the support of the project became huge especially lots of people participate in this project.
Even this situation happen where everything is already not sure in the side of Hamster Combat still for sure that there's still a lot of people hoping to earn a lot of money from them .
I remember Pi coin on this where lots of people got fooled and continue to look forward that one day those who participate will became so fucking rich if their token will be listed on exchange. Although this is different project, but the hope of people earn is similar.