small jets start in the single digit millions. Decent jets (10+ people) are $50M easily, costing $1M+ a year. yachts can get extreme. Add in a few homes throughout the world and you've burnt through that $100M easily. Think of it as comparing a toyota to a bentley.
-- Arnold Schwarzenegger
Maybe that’s why so much has to be payed. A million or so more doesn’t cut it.
But that aside, we're talking here about quality of life which does not equal being able to pay for the craziest most expensive ideas that you can come up with.
Not everything I'd want to do would have an immediate commercial payoff, which would rule out investors. That, in turn, would rule out anyone else doing it, which is why having a wealthy backer is necessary.
>But that aside, we're talking here about quality of life which does not equal being able to pay for the craziest most expensive ideas that you can come up with.
If I'm retired, the ability to do those things would be a huge influence on quality of life for me.
If something is a good idea, you can probably persuade some other people to contribute to it. If you can't persuade anyone, it's probably not a good idea. Even if $500M wouldn't get the job done, it'd be enough to fund a prototype or demonstrator that could attract more funding.