Without saying anything about our company's seed investors (I wasn't here when we did the seed round), the YC companies I've been friends with raised their seed rounds from a mix of "firms" (I didn't do much digging but they all seemed to make lots of investments; ie, at scale) and friends or industry acquaintances. It may just be the case that we hear mostly the hobbyist perspective here, because the people who do seed investing seriously don't bother to wade into HN comment threads.

If you kick in on a friend's company, you shouldn't care what happens if their company has a soft landing; having that level of concern over an investment seems like a really good way to kill a friendship. The friendship is more valuable.