A few reasons, and not all of them are altruistic.
Token distribution at launch determines how decentralized a project actually is. If 80% of supply goes to VCs and team members, governance is captured before the community even enters. Airdrops spread tokens to real users, which looks better on paper and usually results in healthier on-chain activity.
It’s also extremely effective marketing. When Arbitrum distributed its ARB token, the story spread across Crypto Twitter for weeks. That’s millions of dollars of earned attention that no ad budget could replicate.
And finally: projects need liquidity providers, active governance voters, and actual users. Airdrops attract all three at once. The people most likely to engage with a protocol are the people who already have skin in the game.
