I bought myself a new £2,000 PC in December last year and that didn't include the cost of a graphics card as I used my RTX 3080. I have since bought a £1,200 RTX 4080 due to coming across an increasing number of games hitting the RTX 3080's 10 GB VRAM limit at 1440p (not 4K!) and the 4080 was really the only viable upgrade path for me. Sorry AMD fans but I enjoy NVIDIA's superior DLSS and RT features plus only have a G-SYNC display so switching to an AMD GPU was never an option. They offer value in my experience but rarely quality or innovation like NVIDIA. NVIDIA know this though and that is why they feel they can get away with charging whatever they like for their GPUs.
While I concur that you don't need to spend over £3K on a PC to enjoy quality gaming at console settings or better with upscaled 4K, I am someone who wants a system that will last me at least five years and hopefully more, much like a console. My last PC was built in June 2013 and lasted me almost 10 years. My 1080 Ti graphics card, which I had before the RTX 3080, lasted me almost five years. Also, the quality of recent PC games such as the terrible The Last of Us Part 1 conversion, a shameful release on PC that demands ludicrous hardware to run it at PS5 quality settings, means that I feel like I need a high-end PC just to brute force my way through all the lame ports in the last 12 to 18 months!!!
Sadly, I think with the high cost of PC components, especially the graphics cards, that PC gaming is real danger of becoming so niche that developers will eventually abandon it for consoles and all we will be left with are indie games and mobile ports. Laugh if you want but I don't know many people who even own a gaming PC any more. Most people I know have moved on to laptops for work and consoles, iPads and mobile phones for their gaming needs.