Why would anyone do this?

For some, it is very obvious why cryonics would be a great thing.  For others, it isn't so obvious - so let's explore this topic because there are a lot of aspects to this question.

First of all, those who appreciate the idea (like myself) tend to be non-religious and so have an assumption that our natural end, even if all "goes well", will be to die at an older age (perhaps between 80-100) with nothing to follow.  This means no afterlife, no further existence.   If you are religious and believe in an afterlife, then you will naturally be less worried regarding death, because you believe that your consciousness, in some form, will persist in an afterlife.

Even non-religious people though are concerned regarding what might happen in the future for the cyropreserved person.  Potential problems that might occur regarding cryopreservation are as follows:

• The preservation or reanimation process didn't work, so it was a big waste of time and money.
• The process would have worked - but some war or extended power outage disrupted the preservation process.
• The process worked, but you are brought back into a dystopian world where you don't want to be.
• The process worked and the world is OK, but you don't have your spouse, friends, or family with you.
• The new world is confusing and you're position in it is very poor (no money, no skills that apply, etc).

All of these issues are legitimate and the rational person should consider them.  Regarding whether the whole process is a waste of time and money - this depends on your personal assessment.  What "odds" do you think are in play and how likely is it that the process could work?   Other portions of this website - such as the "Is cryonics possible?" page can help you with this assessment. 

Power outages, disruptions of the cold preservation from war or terrorism, or social unrest are also potential problems.  These issues can be mitigated but the risk, just as in life itself, cannot be eliminated.  You will want to review the plans of the cryonics company involved to see how well they have planned for these various concerns.

It is also possible, though I think not probable, that you would be brought back into a dystopian world.  In my opinion though, any world which was doing very poorly would be unlikely to have the resources and feel the need to reanimate someone at that time.  I don't think bringing someone back would help anyone but the company that is doing it (by helping their reputation).  It also seems unlikely that you would be reanimated for any nefarious purpose.

A more obvious concern is the potential loss of friends, family, or a spouse.  Of course, if some or all of such people also become cryopreserved - it is possible that you would see them again in your new world - so one way of mitigating this issue is to convince those you known to also be cryopreserved.  If this doesn't happen, though, then you could indeed be lonely in your new world.  This may not last forever - there may be more advanced technology, psychology, or drugs or things we cannot imaging which would reduce your depression until such time as you are able to create new relationships with those in your new world.  Other cryopreserved people might be your natural friends - especially if they came out of the same era as yourself.  You could potentially even have cryopreserved friends from different past eras, which would certainly make things interesting.

I would not discount as well the very real possibility that things might be a lot better in the future than they are now.  Although there is no shortage of people predicting doom and gloom, technological progress and medical progress show that the world has been steadily improving despite dire predictions.  We are living longer and longer and it may be that at some future point - death will be considered an unfortunate accident - but not necessarily an expected outcome for someone of a particular age (see Ending Aging by Aubrey de Grey for an exposition of this position).  Exploration of space, new technologies, greater comforts, virtual immersion games, better sex, better skin, more money, better computers and robots, -  there really could be a lot of good things in the future.  You would, via cryonics, in a very real way be traveling into the future.  Haven't you ever wanted to do that?