Have you ever played a freeroll? Look at this like a freeroll cause the players are super loose and love to see flops. If you can dodge the minefield 100 times you will make some money. I would advise super tight play and be very aggressive when you flop a monster as people don't like to fold.
So things haven't changed much at all! That's a pretty similar description to how freerolls used to be some 20 years ago.
I've definitely had my fair share of freerolls on Partypoker and Pokerstars back in the day. I remember having to grind through massive fields of 10,000+ players, where all you really had to do was triple up your starting stack early, sit out, wait to coast into the paying spots and collect a couple of bucks. Eventually, you'd build up just enough of a bankroll to sit at a $0.01/$0.02 microstakes table.
Those were the days when you had no major responsibilities and could comfortably sit playing poker for 12+ hours a day! Nowadays for a tournament like this, I have to completely reorganize my schedule just to secure a couple hours of peace and quiet away from the kids and wife, even though uninterrupted peace is never guaranteed, hah!