HF is the default platform to find models. Not just ones published by big labs but also a lot of the distilled or fine-tuned versions, etc.
If Nvidia buying HF makes it tough for all the diverse models on HF, then what are some alternatives?
It seems models are the best things to be available on a Torrent platform? Of course HF is much more than just the files but perhaps the metadata can be separate and hosted on multiple community platforms.
If HF didn’t exist, model releases would likely have been on torrents like Linux iso’s back in the day.
I'd honestly prefer that. I'm usually on 5g if not 4g and pulling models is an absolute nightmare when I basically have to use HF and even with a token getting throttled. Although I have a pretty unique use case. Pulling wads of 5gb tensor files over cellular is painful.
I am on the same boat, I live in a small Himalayan village. I have 2x5G based devices and one Wireless bridge (Ubiquiti LiteBeam M5) for a local broadband. Generally I get 50 Mbps, sometimes up to 100 Mbps
> what are some alternatives
good old torrents
There's over 3 million models on HuggingFace. So many quants. I'd imagine less than 0.5% would actually be seeded.
I don't know anyone who "finds" models on HF. The announcements always come through Reddit, HN, Xitter, and various Discords. HF is just a place where some people bought a domain name, spun up a file server, and struck it rich. If they went away tomorrow, they'd be replaced the next day.