airdrops nowadays also require staking
Not really. There are a lot of airdrops done through Galxe or Zealy or both. And a lot of airdrops that are connected with early testnet participation.
Myself I am currently taking part in Prom Testnet Campaign. Prom Network already has its token and it is listed on various exchanges, but no staking is required whatsoever. You just need to do basic testnet tasks: claiming test tokens from the faucet, minting and buying NFTs, sending and receiving transactions, etc.
The more often you do it (preferably to stay consistent and to it daily) the higher chance of your success to be granted a Delegate role. Delegates will receive an airdrop of tokens. Important part: these tokens will not be for external use. Which means they can't be transferred or sold. But they can be used for governance purposes and will allow to partake in a share of the resulting income
The thing i like most - with stacking you are always competing against wallets larger than yours. But the way Prom is doing it, only the active people will get the prize. And when they do, they will not be able to dump it on the market crashing the price, but will have to use it as leverage to earn their future income. I like the idea a lot, that's why I'm trying my best.
So as you can see airdrops really come in different types and methods.