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Giles comments on Help Request: Cryonics Policies - Less Wrong
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I'm curious about something - does anyone know if cryonics organizations donate to existential risk-reduction causes? And under what circumstances would it make economic sense for them to do so?
For a business, it only begins to make sense to make charitable donations when the business starts to make more money than it needs to stay in business. To donate before that point would be to judge that the business is a less valuable use of its resources than donating them to charity; but the owners, being in that business, have already decided otherwise.
I doubt if any cryonics organisation has reached that point. There is no mass market for cryonics yet, but there is competition, so the organisations aren't in a position to charge any more than it takes to cover their costs.
I can't see how their business model is any more dependent on the existence of humanity than most other businesses.
If the Earth was going to be destroyed by an asteroid in 10 years and everybody knew it, people would still buy McDonald's food this week--but nobody would sign up for cryonics.
Hmm, thinking some more...
If the ROI on the x-risk reduction project was great enough and they had a large enough client base, then donating to that project might benefit their clients but it would benefit their competitors' clients the same amount. So they wouldn't bother.
Joint action by competitors to expand or maintain their customer base is not unheard of. Trade associations often advertise..