X-Message-Number: 9398 Subject: Cryonics: Business or Religion? Date: Fri, 03 Apr 1998 11:02:07 -0500 From: "Perry E. Metzger" <> > From: Charles Platt <> > Subject: Cryonics: Business or Religion? > > When CryoCare was formed, there was a lot of internal debate about > whether it should be for-profit or nonprofit. At the time I argued that > the debate was pointless, since there was no way we were CAPABLE of > making a profit. At the time, I was criticized for being negative and > insufficiently growth-oriented. But all you have to do is look at the > numbers, to see that even if cryonics grew at five times its current > rate, STILL it would not be profitable, at least in the near term. I pushed rather hard for Cryocare to be operated, to the greatest extent possible, be unbunded and operated for profit. To a large extent this was NOT done -- the unbundling of sales/signup services was, unfortunately, not handled this way. What happened was more or less what I predicted -- we didn't get lots of people trying to sell services, because they weren't going to make their living doing so. Saying "Cryocare would not be profitable as currently run, therefore the business model won't work" is like saying "The U.S. Government is horribly inefficient, therefore, if we were to privatize its functions, they would be horribly inefficient." > My conclusion, from this, is that we should forget about our fee > schedules, which are hopelessly unrealistic anyway--a pure piece of > fiction. Instead, so long as cryonics is clearly unprofitable, we should > finance ourselves in the same way that successful charities operate. This > means, ideally, TITHING. I think that will largely doom the whole thing. If we want to get serious about expanding cryonics, people are going to have to forget a bit about their morals and start selling services agressively, and for a profit. I personally have no stomach for that, so I do not wish to get into that business. However, I don't have the stomach for selling real estate or life insurance either, but that does not mean that others don't have the mental outlook for doing such things. You mention that millions of people have heard about cryonics and yet few people are signed up. Well, just knowing about something doesn't sell people. How many people would buy cars if they had to spend months searching to find a car dealer, instead of being bombarded with ads telling them where to find one? Why do you think insurance companies, car dealers, real estate brokers and even laundry detergent companies advertise and agressively market their services? Because they think the ads are aesthetically pleasing, or because they know that if people aren't agressively sought out and practically lead by the nose to a product they won't buy it? If people want to see cryonics expand rapidly, they are going to have to start treating this like a business and try to make money off of it. There is no other way. Perry Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=9398