You can also run a pruned node, basically you download everything and verify it as you go, but once you've computed the utxo set at a given block, you can throw that block away.

Pruned nodes I think are like 2 GB right now? Something in that ballpark.

That actually brings up the idea of sharding which is to assign a node a specific set of transactions and discard the rest. This allows us not to all need an entire record of the blockchain but implementing that into Bitcoin isn't exactly the easiest.