"It just doesn't cost VC-scale capital for one guy (plus perhaps a handful of mechanical turks) to create a website that makes enough money for that one guy to live on."

vc's don't care about companies on that scale - it doesn't fit the vc model of needing one massive hit to cover the losses across the portfolio so they don't lose anything by missing out on that kind of deal.

launching a web app doesn't need vc money but building one of those massive hits does. since those companies (yahoo/google/facebook/etc) have the biggest economic impact, there'll always be a need for VC's, even if the standard terms of deals changes.

I personally think the reason a 'massive hit' needs a lot of money (and therefore VC) is for the hardware/bandwidth/infrastructure costs. Those costs have not come down per the proportions that software costs have.

However, services such as AWS should help for all apps right below the 'massive" threshold, which is the vast majority of apps.

Unfortunately, most companies (Amazon and Facebook, for example) need investors. The differences between what you can do with investment and what you'd have to do without investment are pretty huge, and it seems like you might not win at all without the capital that your competitors enjoy.

Have any YC companies gotten by without investment?

Startups become YC companies to get investment. If they weren't looking for investment, they'd have no need to talk to VCs, micro or not.