Me i would not  say airdrops are killing new projects lately, but they can definitely hurt if they are not planned properly because lately someone in the basement of his mom will just wake up and decide to come with one shallow platform in the name of a project with utilities no proper planning or any form of future progress. the honest truth is most people who join airdrops are just looking for quick profits no matter how small at the end!! they don’t really care about the project itself to begin with, so once tokens are claimable!!! They instantly dump as fast as they can which now creates that heavy sell pressure and if the team has not built a strong tokenomics or utility behind the project, then the price collapse looks like the project is failing even before it gets a chance to grow.
Airdrops still have their benefits though. Because they are one of the fastest ways to put a project on the map!! to bring in users and build that necessary digital hype. I think the difference lies in how they are structured from the beginning. If it is just a free giveaway that is disguise in form of a projectect, then it attracts dumpers. But if rewards are tied to actual engagements like staking, governance or long even term holding incentives i believe  people are more likely to stay involved rather than sell at the first opportunity they get.

Airdrops themselves are kind of not the problem. The problem is the poor planning and weak fundamentals... because projects that only rely on hype usually fade after the dump but the ones with real utilities, clear roadmaps and strong communities bounce back even stronger after the initial sell off take for instance Pi Network.