As the cryptocurrency landscape evolved and faucets gained traction, the rewards they offered were greatly diminished, and they were often disbursed in small amounts. However, their role was pivotal. Beyond rewards, these faucets played a huge role in the evolution of cryptocurrency, acting as catalysts that democratized access and spread the crypto wave to a wider audience. First faucet ever created was in 2010, just one year after creating the bitcoin protocol. Some faucets paid 5btc on every claim. This was huge!
Furthermore, these faucets not only boosted user engagement, but also added an educational layer, introducing newcomers to the dynamics of blockchain transactions, private and public keys, and wallet security.
Yup faucets were popular during the early days of Bitcoin and I remember in 2016/17 era the faucets were widely used and freebitco was the one that consistently provided the faucet services. I remember during those time, there were many bitcoin faucets sites and many went down but freebitco is still up to date.
People started losing interest in faucets as when the bitcoin price started to increase, it was no longer feasible for the sites to offer free faucets, however these days I guess only freebitco is still up and running, though it has transformed a lot from faucet to a full-fledged gambling site.