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thomblake comments on Normal Cryonics - Less Wrong
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Currently it is set up as a bit of a Ponzi scheme; without new people coming in (and donations) these companies wouldn't survive very long. But then, with a little tweaking you could apply that analysis to any business with customers to make it look like a Ponzi scheme.
Could you write this up in more detail somewhere? The claim is that the "patient care trust" doesn't need new customers to be financially viable, and should keep going even if the primary business fails. If this isn't true it would be worth drawing attention to.
Alcor is running at a loss
I do believe they would be capable of running within their means if they had to.
For some value of "running at a loss", i.e. where you interpret that as "would run at a loss if it weren't for donations and bequests".
Given the nature of their business, donations and bequests do not strike me as an anomalous source of revenue. I do plan on asking for more information on the nature of these revenues before signing up.
However, this is an issue quite separate from the viability of the patient care trust, which is set up to keep suspendees as they are even in the case of a failure of the "main business".
Most businesses deliver a product or service to their customers much sooner after receiving their money than a cryonics company does. Those customers also tend to be alive and so in a position to complain if they are not satisfied with their purchase.
Let's try to make this concrete.
Suppose I choose CI, and pay up now for a lifetime membership. I will pay $1250 once, and in parallel build up $200K insurance policy designating CI as the beneficiary. The only part of the money CI sees now is the $1.2K. No small sum, but neither it is more than a tiny fraction of the salaries and costs CI verifiably pays.
At 40, I can reasonably expect to go 30 to 40 years before I die. At any time during this period, if it becomes apparent that CI is up to anything screwy, I can (so I understand) change my insurance policy back; or at any rate contest their claim to it.
If you want to defraud customers, there are quicker, cheaper, more reliable ways to do it.
There are people currently being stored are there not?
Indeed there are.
As the reasoning above suggests, they tend to be people who have known and watched the cryonics organizations for a long time, up close and personal.