A lot of startups no longer need VC money. With services similar to Amazon's in numerous other aspects of business (accounting, outsourcing, admin work, HR, research) and ridiculously cheap server costs & hardware, most startups don't need near the amount of capital that they used to.
You think it's a matter of choice? As CTO of a venture-seeking startup, I can assure you, it's not. Everyone would love to bootstrap, but you have to be practical and pragmatic. No one's choosing to avoid VC money right now, but the barrier to entry to the VC world has certainly gone up for the time being. Stricter qualifying criteria & whatnot.
A lot of startups no longer need VC money. With services similar to Amazon's in numerous other aspects of business (accounting, outsourcing, admin work, HR, research) and ridiculously cheap server costs & hardware, most startups don't need near the amount of capital that they used to.