for $UNI airdrop, eligibility criteria were to trade minimum $20 on uniswap and you we're rewarded 400 $UNI tokens, worth $20k at ATH; there was another from Ribbon exchange, you were given $80k worth $RBN for being active on their discord; then there was $JTO recently, lowest criteria received $10k worth of $JTO; $ARB, $OP were worth several thousands, as well.
...and these are just few top of my mind, there been plenty airdrops worth significant amounts of money in last 4 years.
Considering ATH price you are just fooling yourself.
Just as it could go to 20k it could also go to zero. You must consider the price when you receive the coins.
Fair enough, I was one of those who sold $UNI on day received, at about $4 price.
It is very unlikely that you will spend hours in the right airdrop and hold it until the day it reaches ath
Farming airdrops is recent thing, before it became a thing, people didn't know project would do an airdrop, so activity that users did was genuine and since farmers weren't there (or weren't as populated as they are now), was reason why criterias were simple back then and amounts rewarded were good too.
Regarding, holding till ath, $UNI was just a mention, hefty amounts giving airdrops like $DYDX $RBN happened during 2021 bull market so even on token debut prices were good.