I think that main reason is actually somewhat different. Let’s remove one aspect from the cryonics proposal : “far future” part. Then it will sound something like that:
A new sort of emergency medical procedure is developed. After complete cessation of brain activity, body is frozen with liquid nitrogen and operation using is performed. Then patient awakes alive and healthy next Friday, or no body to speak of is left for funeral. Estimated chances for success are single-digit percents, and cost several tens of thousands dollars.
How many people (among those who can afford) will want that to be covered by medical insurance? Probably less then half but still several orders of magnitude more than for cryonics.
So conclusion is: “chance to live longer now” and “chance to start a new life in far future” are massively different things. Some people consider the second very valuable, but for overwhelming majority it is just worthless.
I think that main reason is actually somewhat different. Let’s remove one aspect from the cryonics proposal : “far future” part. Then it will sound something like that:
A new sort of emergency medical procedure is developed. After complete cessation of brain activity, body is frozen with liquid nitrogen and operation using is performed. Then patient awakes alive and healthy next Friday, or no body to speak of is left for funeral. Estimated chances for success are single-digit percents, and cost several tens of thousands dollars.
How many people (among those who can afford) will want that to be covered by medical insurance? Probably less then half but still several orders of magnitude more than for cryonics.
So conclusion is: “chance to live longer now” and “chance to start a new life in far future” are massively different things. Some people consider the second very valuable, but for overwhelming majority it is just worthless.