Ralph Merkle wants to build a "Really Big Dewar" or "RBD" As you know, a Dewar is the storage vessel that is filled with liquid nitrogen and hold the patient in perpetuity. This dewar would be the size of a small skyscraper and would be mostly underground and have a much higher thermal efficiency than we are currently able to achieve with our smaller dewars as advanced as they are (in comparison to contemporary technologies). The RBD would house as many as 5.5M neuro patients and cost less than $1 per patient per year when full to store a patient indefinitely as compared with around $110 per patient at present.
In addition to this, and most notably, the real efficiencies of scale would be found with the number of cryonicsts and people receiving cryonics. 5.5M patients and more affordability would mean having all the efficiencies of a full time staff at various hubs where patients would be prepped for preservation as well as remove the notion that cryonics is only for the rich from the equation. The cost of labor, materials, and $200 for the perpetual storage trust fund would be $2,650 for a whole body with Merkle's projections. Despite financing cryonics with life insurance, the costs are still pretty high. My quote for cryonics was ~$150-160/mo and assumes that I will continue paying until until I'm 120 or for at least the next 87 years. That's ~$161,800 in total payments to afford something that's $80-88k and could be wasted considering that there may be other things I need that money for. Especially if cryonics doesn't materialize for me as is currently a problem. Many lose their coverage during periods of financial hardship and wind up getting cremated for lack of funds despite paying into their insurance for years. Others might have been able to live better and longer spending that money on something else, and many are persuaded to give up cryonics by family members who would rather have good lives in the now than maybe getting revived some day. In any case... Historically, I've immediately discounted any salesman who sells me on "affordable monthly installments" over value and ideal pricing. The only reason I'm even willing to consider funding cryonics with insurance at present is due to recent financial challenges. If it's not a house and I can't buy it with cash or put it on a credit card and pay it off by the end of the month... I just don't buy it. I've never owned a car loan or a loan for any big item other than student loans which just disgust me the way they've turned out.
Life insurance in all cases except cryonics is deathist in nature and tells most people that their death is valuable to their families. We need to get away from this notion entirely. It's degrading and is a major driver for the choice of deathism over choosing life. An old man or woman who can't work or help their family in any other way sees their children suffering financially or going unfulfilled and there is nothing they can do to help them except die and leave behind insurance money! It's disgusting. People in the twilight of their lives see goals they haven't reached and feel better about aging because they're leaving behind insurance money to make up for it. This is why death is comforting to so many people. Life insurance is a means to an end, but it's no more than an opiate for someone who might otherwise spent their life fighting against aging and death! We can never forget that, no matter how old we may get. Unfortunately, annuities (an investment rather than an installment payment) can't be used to fund 100% of cryonics.
However, every teenager with a part time job could readily afford $4,000 cryonics and would most likely be guaranteed to have it in the event that it's needed. It also means we're no longer a first world only service and it brings us much closer to offering our products to those in developing countries or even raising money to subsidize cryonics for those whose citizenship doesn't permit income high enough to afford it. At this scale, no one will have to be left behind and that was the original intent of cryonics and immortality. Not to have it only for the rich and lifelong financially stable in first world economies.
This is what cryonics HAS to become. This is how cryonics "Mans up" IMO. Everything else is apathy.