Guess what, the big players are hoarding all the RAM and GPUs so that other people can't afford decent hardware. It's working out beautifully for them!
It's $200/month. You have to take into account energy costs and all the rest of a system, but if you break even within 1-2 years ($2400-$4800) it'd be a pretty good deal. And $4000 buys you a pretty decent system.
But it's a hefty upfront investment for people who just want to experiment. The good thing about $200/month subscriptions is that you can cancel them any time and cut your losses. Not so with a $4000 computer that loses half of its resale value as soon as you plug it in.
I think the current sweet spot for people who don't already own a high-end gaming PC is to rent a server with a beefy GPU from Hetzner et al. and run local models there.