You can sync a full ethereum node (all blocks with all transactions and fully verified current state) on a rasberry pi with a 1TB ssd. With 3TB of ssd space, you can even have an archival node (the above, but with all the state history changes cleanly indexed by account, which is only really needed if you want to run a block explorer).
The issue for ethereum flat out isn't the hardware requirements, its laziness. Infura, Alchemy, et al make a very convenient shortcut for impatient folks and that is why they get used. The good news is that there is a ton of real development going into light clients that can trustlessly get and interact with with the current state of the chain within a few minutes of launching and can even run within a web browser.
The issue for ethereum flat out isn't the hardware requirements, its laziness. Infura, Alchemy, et al make a very convenient shortcut for impatient folks and that is why they get used. The good news is that there is a ton of real development going into light clients that can trustlessly get and interact with with the current state of the chain within a few minutes of launching and can even run within a web browser.