My experience with bootstrapped companies is that they are just as subject to pressure to grow as startups, and probably have a higher success rate.
Atlassian, Github, Mailchimp and Shopify are all companies that initially started as bootstrapped companies and, in my mind, stand out as some of the most sustainably successful startups of recent history.
Parent's argument is that bootstrapped companies are dramatically less likely to ever grow and that only VC backed early stage companies are, therefore it makes no economic sense to provide discounts to bootstrapped early stage companies.
My point is that I don't believe that this holds out in the data that expected long term value of a bootstrapped company is significantly lower than a VC invested on.
Personally, I find there is ample evidence that "VCs largely are just handing money around to each other to give the illusion of growth" is a solid hypothesis.