Not really. VCs want growth, consumers want stability. A company can be profitable and stable and still die because VCs want ROI and hence growth and the growth potential of the existing market has been depleted.
Arguably, Pebble was an example of this. They initially presented the smartwatch as a productivity tool and many users loved it. But the productivity market was much smaller than the fitness market so they kept adding fitness related features. This eventually enabled them to be bought out by Fitbit (for a good exit) who saw no further use in the brand and killed it.
Another example is planned obsolescence: there's very little money in producing a product that has few returning customers because it continues to work fine for decades.
Saying "consumers" or "demand" or "your wallet" implies a level of agency and democratic control that isn't really there in practice. Consumers don't decide product success, profit and growth does. And consumers certainly don't get to make any direct decisions, they just get to pick through what has already been preselected for them.
And what about companies like 3M who don't inherently focus on MVP and instead significantly invest in products that are targetted for humans? Not favouring growth at all costs.
Yes, a lot of "new"/"modern" companies that have shiny balance sheets with the colour black used, and not red, follow as you attribe. But there are plenty whom do not.
Consumers will routinely go for a smartwatch that is $25 cheaper that is riddled with spyware.
There are two schools of thought over this: they just don't care so it's fine or the wool has been pulled over their eyes.
The backlash from industry against laws that are largely just intended to inform consumers and keep them in the loop (like GDPR) kind of hints that it's not the former.
Consumers are especially bad at pricing risk. Just because they made a decision doesn't mean that they walked into those risks with open eyes.
If there is demand, the product will succeed. See: all the companies that came from bootstrapped startups.
If there is no demand, no amount of VC money will make a successful company. See: Magic Leap.