Is getting one Bitcoin impossible now
No. It would be possible, if everyone would start burning coins like crazy, so the whole supply would drop below 1 BTC. But as long as Proof of Burn is not widely used, it is not the case.
Is there a way to get it for free like in the past?
Yes, there are some faucets, which can give you them. However, amounts you receive would be quite low, and it may take a lot of time, to make your first on-chain transaction. Many exchanges and casinos have faucets, so there is a way to get something for "free", but then, instead of investing your money, you just pay with your time. The same, when it comes to signature campaigns, that can send you something, for writing good posts (but usually, they require to advertize something, that you may not approve, so it comes with some moral choices, if you are willing to wear a signature for something you wouldn't use by yourself).
Also, you can always mine new coins, or receive them from some puzzles, by providing Proof of Work, or solving some math equations.
In the past its value was zero, so no real money was transferred.
Even when fiat value was zero, then still, it required grinding double SHA-256 hashes, so even then, it was far from being "free". Basically, its value was comparable to some of existing altcoins.
The actual value comes in the decade or so you needed to wait while holding it.
Just waiting, without any actions, won't bring any value out of nowhere. There are a lot of altcoins, where people copy-pasted Bitcoin's code, and did nothing to improve it. And then, the only purpose of such altcoins is to be mined, and traded for BTC, and the only value comes from that mining and trading alone, and nothing else.
The reason why Bitcoin is worth so much, is because many people did a lot of things, to promote it, and to improve it. Of course, the rest of the community could just sit and wait, but it is just a side effect of other people, working hard, to raise the price, so that the more lazy crowd could also participate in this success.
Also, when copycat coins just do nothing, and not even update their code, then their nodes are becoming less and less secure, if there are no developers, focused on fixing bugs, introducing new features, and keeping the codebase alive. Which is one of many reasons, why they are pumped and dumped: to move the price of a given altcoin up, some effort is needed. Sitting and waiting won't change anything, if there is nobody, who is going to do the hard work.
