VCs are necessary to accelerate progress. Especially in tech companies where R&D is so expensive up front and yet scales well when it's done. And a side effect of VCs is that it's more expensive to operate in the same industry as one.

because the competition has VCs or deep pockets and to compete effectively and get visibilty in the market you need more money than what you can generate by bootstrapping. and no, you cannot convince people to just work for equity.