If the case that they need to invest some amount to be able to receive some tokens or more gain more from their plans on how many they distribute to their community then I really agree that this is not airdrop, but rather an investment.
Early bird participants towards that phase receive more compare to those who are just doing their airdrops. I don't say its good but kinda risky to try if there's money involve in the discussion on supposed to be airdrop programs they are joining.
If I where those people I will not join if there's money involve before we can qualify since for I think its a scam.
The problem is
that airdrop is botted
afas heck, Somnia testnet phase records tens of millions of unique address being botted by airdrop farmer using automated means and the same thing happened to other L1 as well
who trywhich trying to do airdrop to their testnet
users that doesn't even cost a penny and as of recent they try to filter it by requiring some kind of investment even if it's little so yeah we can actually call it an investment or some sort.
The devs argue that to receive or qualify an airdrop, the one who truly deserve it need to have some skin in the game which is fair so to speak but it does have risk to certain extent.
Apparently the testnet users aren't really cooking these days, all the allocation goes out to stakers and pre sale buyers. It's like speculation.