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I'm regularly amazed that HuggingFace is able to make money. It does so much good for the world. How solid is its business model? Is it long-term viable? Will

I'm regularly amazed that HuggingFace is able to make money. It does so much good for the world. How solid is its business model? Is it long-term viable? Will they ever "sell out"?

I_am_tiberius 8mo ago
I once tried hugging face because I wanted I worked through some tutorial. They wanted my credit card details during the registration as far as I remember. After a month they invoiced me some amount of money and I had no idea what it was. To be honest, I don't understand what exactly they do and what services I was paying for, but I cancelled my account and never touched it again. For me that was a totally intransparent process.
- shafyy 8mo ago
  Their pricing seems pretty transparent: https://huggingface.co/pricing https://huggingface.co/pricing
- in-silico 8mo ago
  Sounds like a personal skill issue
dmezzetti 8mo ago
They have paid hosting - https://huggingface.co/enterprise https://huggingface.co/enterprise and paid accounts. Also consulting services. Seems like a pretty good foundation to me.
- julien_c 8mo ago
  and a lot of traction on paid (private in particular) storage these days; sneak peek at new landing page: https://huggingface.co/storage https://huggingface.co/storage
microsoftedging 8mo ago
FT had a solid piece a few weeks back: "Why AI start-up Hugging Face turned down a $500mn Nvidia deal" https://giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/actions/redeem/9b4eca55-1214-4f9e-b85e-58571d8da8d4 https://giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/actions/redeem/9b4eca...
- jackbravo 8mo ago
  sounds very interesting, but even though it says giftarticle.ft, I got blocked by a paywall.
  - nerevarthelame 8mo ago
    https://archive.is/zSyUc https://archive.is/zSyUc To summarize, they rejected Nvidia's offer because they didn't want one outsized investor who could sway decisions. And "the company was also able to turn down Nvidia due to its stable finances. Hugging Face operates a 'freemium' business model. Three per cent of customers, usually large corporations, pay for additional features such as more storage space and the ability to set up private repositories."
    - bee_rider 8mo ago
      Freemium seems to be working pretty well for them—what’s the alternative website, after all. They seem to command their niche.
  - culi 8mo ago
    find the Bypass Paywalls Clean extension. Never worry about a paywall again
heliumtera 8mo ago
>Will they ever "sell out"? Oh no, never. Don't worry, the usual investors are very well known for fighting for user autonomy (AMD, Nvidia, Intel,IBM, Qualcomm) They are all very pro consumers and all backers are certainly here for your enjoyment only
- zozbot234 8mo ago
  These are all big hardware firms, which makes a lot of sense as a classic 'commoditize the complement' play. Not exactly pro-consumer, but not quite anti-consumer either!
  - 5o1ecist 8mo ago
    [flagged]
    - HanClinto 8mo ago
      Great points. Valve is one of my top favorite companies right now. Love the work they're doing, and their products are amazing. Can hardly wait for the Steam Frame.
    - RussianCow 8mo ago
      > By law they are required to do whatever they can to maximize profits. I know it's a nit-pick, but I hate that this always gets brought up when it's not actually true. Public corporations face pressure from investors to maximize returns, sure, but there is no law stating that they have to maximize profits at all costs. Public companies can (and often do) act against the interest of immediate profits for some other gain. The only real leverage that investors have is the board's ability to fire executives, but that assumes that they have the necessary votes to do so. As a counter-example, Mark Zuckerberg still controls the majority of voting power at Meta, so he can effectively do whatever he wants with the company without major consequence (assuming you don't consider stock price fluctuations "major"). But I say this not to take away from your broader point, which I agree with: the short-term profit-maximizing culture is indeed the default when it comes to publicly traded corporations. It just isn't something inherent in being publicly traded, and in the inverse, private companies often have the same kind of culture, so that's not a silver bullet either.
bityard 8mo ago
Their business model is essentially the same as GitHub. Host lots of stuff for free and build a community around it, sell the upscaled/private version to businesses. They are already profitable.
- HanClinto 8mo ago
  This is what Sourceforge did too, and they still had the DevShare adware thing didn't they? GitHub is great -- huge fan. To some degree they "sold out" to Microsoft and things could have gone more south, but thankfully Microsoft has ruled them with a very kind hand, and overall I'm extremely happy with the way they've handled it. I guess I always retain a bit of skepticism with such things, and the long-term viability and goodness of such things never feels totally sure.

I'm regularly amazed that HuggingFace is able to make money. It does so much good for the world. How solid is its business model? Is it long-term viable? Will they ever "sell out"?

I_am_tiberius 8mo ago

I once tried hugging face because I wanted I worked through some tutorial. They wanted my credit card details during the registration as far as I remember. After a month they invoiced me some amount of money and I had no idea what it was. To be honest, I don't understand what exactly they do and what services I was paying for, but I cancelled my account and never touched it again. For me that was a totally intransparent process.

shafyy 8mo ago
Their pricing seems pretty transparent: https://huggingface.co/pricing https://huggingface.co/pricing
in-silico 8mo ago
Sounds like a personal skill issue

dmezzetti 8mo ago

They have paid hosting - https://huggingface.co/enterprise https://huggingface.co/enterprise and paid accounts. Also consulting services. Seems like a pretty good foundation to me.

julien_c 8mo ago
and a lot of traction on paid (private in particular) storage these days; sneak peek at new landing page: https://huggingface.co/storage https://huggingface.co/storage

microsoftedging 8mo ago

FT had a solid piece a few weeks back: "Why AI start-up Hugging Face turned down a $500mn Nvidia deal" https://giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/actions/redeem/9b4eca55-1214-4f9e-b85e-58571d8da8d4 https://giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/actions/redeem/9b4eca...

jackbravo 8mo ago
sounds very interesting, but even though it says giftarticle.ft, I got blocked by a paywall.
- nerevarthelame 8mo ago
  https://archive.is/zSyUc https://archive.is/zSyUc To summarize, they rejected Nvidia's offer because they didn't want one outsized investor who could sway decisions. And "the company was also able to turn down Nvidia due to its stable finances. Hugging Face operates a 'freemium' business model. Three per cent of customers, usually large corporations, pay for additional features such as more storage space and the ability to set up private repositories."
  - bee_rider 8mo ago
    Freemium seems to be working pretty well for them—what’s the alternative website, after all. They seem to command their niche.
- culi 8mo ago
  find the Bypass Paywalls Clean extension. Never worry about a paywall again

heliumtera 8mo ago

>Will they ever "sell out"? Oh no, never. Don't worry, the usual investors are very well known for fighting for user autonomy (AMD, Nvidia, Intel,IBM, Qualcomm) They are all very pro consumers and all backers are certainly here for your enjoyment only

zozbot234 8mo ago
These are all big hardware firms, which makes a lot of sense as a classic 'commoditize the complement' play. Not exactly pro-consumer, but not quite anti-consumer either!
- 5o1ecist 8mo ago
  [flagged]
  - HanClinto 8mo ago
    Great points. Valve is one of my top favorite companies right now. Love the work they're doing, and their products are amazing. Can hardly wait for the Steam Frame.
  - RussianCow 8mo ago
    > By law they are required to do whatever they can to maximize profits. I know it's a nit-pick, but I hate that this always gets brought up when it's not actually true. Public corporations face pressure from investors to maximize returns, sure, but there is no law stating that they have to maximize profits at all costs. Public companies can (and often do) act against the interest of immediate profits for some other gain. The only real leverage that investors have is the board's ability to fire executives, but that assumes that they have the necessary votes to do so. As a counter-example, Mark Zuckerberg still controls the majority of voting power at Meta, so he can effectively do whatever he wants with the company without major consequence (assuming you don't consider stock price fluctuations "major"). But I say this not to take away from your broader point, which I agree with: the short-term profit-maximizing culture is indeed the default when it comes to publicly traded corporations. It just isn't something inherent in being publicly traded, and in the inverse, private companies often have the same kind of culture, so that's not a silver bullet either.

bityard 8mo ago

Their business model is essentially the same as GitHub. Host lots of stuff for free and build a community around it, sell the upscaled/private version to businesses. They are already profitable.

HanClinto 8mo ago
This is what Sourceforge did too, and they still had the DevShare adware thing didn't they? GitHub is great -- huge fan. To some degree they "sold out" to Microsoft and things could have gone more south, but thankfully Microsoft has ruled them with a very kind hand, and overall I'm extremely happy with the way they've handled it. I guess I always retain a bit of skepticism with such things, and the long-term viability and goodness of such things never feels totally sure.