I think icodrops is a well-known site for ICO already even before and this forum is likely aware of it. Well, these days I think alpha thing is getting shared across twitter community already, it's not just about the upcoming launchpads but there are lot of other stuff too like airdrops and other free stuff, even the ordinal craze some of those happens to be free.
I think most projects today do rely on VCs and we may see other still doing the public ICO but for me it already slowed down in terms of adoption.
I guess, a great part of this, is due to the Actual sentiment of the Market. The Ico was a banger in Bull seasons, but now I am finding again some strong ones(that also have airdrops incoming) Zksync and layer zero I discovered first there and later the proper Airdrops (well possible airdrops because SUI is a case that didn't have one)