How many people exist who will be willing to buy at that price? Well, there are about 24 million people in the USA with a net worth of over a million dollars — about 40% of the millionaires, worldwide. As a back-of-the-envelope, order-of-magnitude guess, let’s say that there are about 50 million people who could reasonably afford Nectome’s services, that about 2% of these people die each year, and that half of those do so in a way that’s compatible with going to Oregon and getting MAiD — 500k potential clients per year. Even if only one-in-a-thousand people are open to it, philosophically, Nectome really could potentially be serving hundreds of clients per year, if they get really good at marketing. And, if they break the Overton window open, thousands per year is plausible.
I’ve run calculations like this before, and have thought, “Why are there not more cryonicists?” I think the sad reality is that many people who “should” be interested in it just have all sorts of rationalizations for their initial impression that it is weird or unnatural or could be worse than death. So I think your prior should be the rate of people already signing up for cryonics, and argue why Nectome is different. For the average person who might be interested, I don’t think it’s that different. That said, since you can fund this from life insurance with an early payout, I think it’s more affordable to people than your calculation suggests.
The dynamic you’re talking about is real, but also I suspect is a product of the Overton window being closed. Marketing and building momentum could, I think, unlock a huge market. But absent doing better than the existing orgs on that front, I agree the customer base is likely going to be tiny.
Opening the Overton window would be great, but even endorsements of mainstream famous people like Larry King, Seth MacFarlane, Simon Cowell, Paris Hilton, and Britney Spears hasn’t seemed to help much.
How much is that talked about by the cryonics companies? Normally “social proof” is a big deal, and having that as part of a FAQ would be very persuasive to the normies!
I’ve run calculations like this before, and have thought, “Why are there not more cryonicists?” I think the sad reality is that many people who “should” be interested in it just have all sorts of rationalizations for their initial impression that it is weird or unnatural or could be worse than death. So I think your prior should be the rate of people already signing up for cryonics, and argue why Nectome is different. For the average person who might be interested, I don’t think it’s that different. That said, since you can fund this from life insurance with an early payout, I think it’s more affordable to people than your calculation suggests.
The dynamic you’re talking about is real, but also I suspect is a product of the Overton window being closed. Marketing and building momentum could, I think, unlock a huge market. But absent doing better than the existing orgs on that front, I agree the customer base is likely going to be tiny.
Opening the Overton window would be great, but even endorsements of mainstream famous people like Larry King, Seth MacFarlane, Simon Cowell, Paris Hilton, and Britney Spears hasn’t seemed to help much.
How much is that talked about by the cryonics companies? Normally “social proof” is a big deal, and having that as part of a FAQ would be very persuasive to the normies!