The HIMF at z ≈ 0 inferred by combining the local M _{H I}–M _B relation with the B-band luminosity function, with (A) no assumed scatter in the M _{H I}–M _B relation, and (B) a scatter of σ = 0.26 dex, equal to that in the local universe (Dénes et al. 2014). In each panel, the blue stars show the HIMF of local galaxies inferred here, while the solid line shows the best-fit Schechter function to the inferred HIMF. The dashed line indicates the HIMF measured from the unbiased ALFALFA survey (Jones et al. 2018). It is clear that the assumption of zero scatter results in a significant underestimate of the number of high-mass galaxies, while the assumption σ = 0.26 dex yields a HIMF that is in good agreement with the directly measured one.