That couldn't be farther from the truth, for a real startup with a real business. Maybe growth will not be as fast without VC funds, but I don't think real businesses will notice shrinking investments.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
These companies would struggle to operate with positive cashflows as their products/services and growth hasn't matured to allow for it yet. Perhaps they are building their product and/or are still in the early stages of iterating on their idea. Just because they have a decent business doesn't mean straight away they can consolidate right away on their business in terms of running a profit.
A lot of decent future businesses could die if startups are forced to consolidate. However in instances this may be a wake up call to keep them accountable to the financials of their business.
Then they would have to do like all of us, get creative and find alternative ways of getting cash.
But then, since it's irrelevant, bootstrappers have little incentive to comment here, other than a few folks for whom HN has become a habit. From where I sit the bootstrap startup world is actually significantly larger than the VC world, but the incentives are different: it is not to a bootstrapper's advantage to publish what they're doing to people other than their customers.
Good point.