[andreyk]

yep, you read that right. Source: I am a PhD student at Stanford at the Stanford Vision and Learning lab (http://svl.stanford.edu/) and read a ton of AI papers. The vast majority of papers are done with datasets anyone can just download / request, as far as I've seen.

[DoctorOetker]

personally, without affiliation to a university, I have a hard time downloading the datasets through my slow home connection. I live in a city with a university, I explained the situation but they won't let me download a dataset even if I pay, ... only when I enroll. Instead of just selling the shovel, they want to sell me the wheelbarrow too.

I succeeded one time in convincing the guy behind a desk in an internet cafe, so I could bring my HDD and download a dataset in a calmer time of day, and throttled so it wouldn't disturb other customers. This went without any problems for the other customers in the internet cafe. When I asked again a few months later for a new dataset, they no longer wanted me to do so...

There seems to be no download by mail service (and I only get people forwarding me to google cloud products etc, which as a European is so financially out there with automatic balance deductions and non transparent pricing schemes, I would have no qualms using GCP or others if they ran a prepaid alternative for people who refuse to take on risk)

[K0SM0S]

All of which is very satisfying! Thank you for the uplifting view.