title: Back in my day, LocalLLaMa were the pioneers!
author: u/ForsookComparison
contenttype: redditpost
publication: r/LocalLLaMA
published: 2026-02-27T22:00:57+00:00
sourceurl: https://www.reddit.com/r/LocalLLaMA/comments/1rgkc1b/backinmydaylocalllamawerethepioneers/
word_count: 391
Link: https://i.redd.it/hiz4ukvg04mg1.jpeg
Score: 1167 | Comments: 203 | Subreddit: r/LocalLLaMA
Top Comments
u/AcornTear (359 pts):
I remember people saying we wouldn't have a local model as good as GPT4 for at least 10 years. Good times
u/cosimoiaia (156 pts):
Those were the golden days. That was 20 years ago in LLM time.
Sometimes I still can't believe the size of prompts and context we are complaining about today.
An MoE that runs on a 2-3k rig is a LOT better than what chatgpt 3.5 was (but that's not necessarily a good thing, imo).
One thing keeps being true, writing good prompts for different models still makes a ton of difference.
u/jacek2023 (144 pts):
https://preview.redd.it/urq5tacg84mg1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=dbcaf0e29e86309f2c85af7e55dfd86fb48bf2db
never forget 2023
u/No_You3985 (48 pts):
At first I found schizo-posts about “innovative” llm architectures that pop up every week or so entertaining. The authors typically have very vague idea of math requirements for ML algos to learn and how it gets optimized in kernels. But now even that brings me no joy. I miss the feeling of reading my first couple schizo-posts. It was something physics-inspired I think. I even shared one with a colleague who was a physics postdoc before moving into ML
u/iz-Moff (45 pts):
It really feels odd to me how little discussion there is about various LLMs outside of commenting on news and announcements.
I go to huggingface, look at the stats - wow, this model was downloaded like hundreds of thousands of times in the last month, surely there's people talking about it? Nope, not a single active discussion. Do a google search - nothing. If you experience any issue with a model - too bad, cause you probably won't find any help at all.
Where are all the people actually using these models? Are they all in China and only talk on their local platforms? Are they all on some random discord server somewhere? Who knows!
u/ShengrenR (39 pts):
As though folks weren't just as pumped to be gooning up a storm back in the good ol days, or just following the herd as lead by benchmarks. Online communities are hard to maintain in just about every case, the fact that localllama is still a place worth going for the latest and has folks around who are active doers is a win in itself.
u/KaroYadgar (41 pts):
actually though. If you're not going to try it, don't have an opinion on it. I rarely try any of the new LLMs that come out, but I try not to have an opinion on any of them until I try them myself some day.
u/dipittydoop (51 pts):
Early adopters are self selected chads. It's all over once the unwashed masses show up.
u/NoAfternoon4260 (55 pts):
please reboot thebloke
u/Kooshi_Govno (69 pts):
imma be real, I've been around here a while and, while they're not my scene, the gooners were the foundation of this sub
u/Briskfall (20 pts):
I remember the days of AutoGPT...
u/thecalmgreen (24 pts):
https://preview.redd.it/vi1jtp9ko4mg1.png?width=533&format=png&auto=webp&s=61d1f6424f1f6024cb69e4d542b83cca2c1d9ddc
u/MaruluVR (46 pts):
The good old days before LLMs started speaking exclusively in agentic slop
u/mantafloppy (13 pts):
2023 - The good old days.
https://old.reddit.com/r/LocalLLaMA/comments/18h2vdj/ifyouhaveissuerunning/
u/SuchAGoodGirlsDaddy (12 pts):
2024? USE ROPE?!
In 2023 Rope scaling was literaly being invented here.
u/Torodaddy (9 pts):
“Does it let you goon?” ⚰️
u/Imakerocketengine (5 pts):
Please do not make me look at the number of Kw i've consumed since
u/IngwiePhoenix (11 pts):
I want to upvote this twice. :D
Also, community refines/retrains. Those were also huge. Massive shoutouts to Bloke!
u/RegularRecipe6175 (5 pts):
Mixtral gang in the house. It was the first local LLM I could run on my potato that was useful. Before I sold a kidney to buy a GPU.
u/christianweyer (6 pts):
gguf when?
u/jacek2023 (14 pts):
The words of wisdom. The words of truth.
One important correction: 2023, not 2024. Look at my username and look at my profile
u/noctrex (7 pts):
Well I think we have it very good actually. Just look at how many open weight models were released in the last three months.
u/honato (7 pts):
When did can we goon it stop being a driving question?
u/LocoMod (5 pts):
The intelligence of a crowd decreases in proportion to its size.