It's not really a secret that angel and seed funding has been steadily dropping since the mid-2010s.
With that said, I think that @brenden2 is overvaluing funding. Most people around here build software -- which can be easily bootstrapped. For those in hardware/biotech/energy/etc. it's much harder to get out an MVP without funding.
Overall I see the availability of seed funding as still quite high.
Very much agree with your last point about overvaluing funding. It's never been easier to bootstrap something for a year or two. Get an actual product working, maybe have a few users, and then go for funding to scale up. We see this in the data too with median company ages at the time of seed funding rising.
Generalizations based upon experience are perfectly valid when the market is not flat.
I suspect that there is lots of capital washing between insiders and very little outside the bubble.
the problem with statistics is you have to look how it's being used to figure out if you've got something lower than a damned lie or higher than an expert opinion. Which requires work and expertise of its own.
If you consider all the money thrown at unicorns ... maybe.
The $15-70 million range has been a desert for the past 4 years.
Everybody wants the unicorn or the $1 million 100x exit.