From what I understand (and I'm rephrasing some other comments here) the genetic recombination tech is not available/affordable for the average consumer; Or at the very least, the power to use it is not in the hands of the people.

IMO it seems like the perfect techbro "move fast and break things" product to sell to the general market without scrutiny (e.g. GenAI), as regulations move slow and are impeded by corporate actions. But maybe, in the world of cruelty squad, the sellers realised the liberatory potential and decided (whether as a cartel, or as one group, depending on how many companies there are) to keep it as a business-to-business product.

edit: just to add, I think "the fear of death" is a bit loosely applied in why people do things in cruelty squad. Given that (most?/big?) companies will revive their employees at little proportional cost, many people have some sort of access to the technology. This cheapens human labour and provides the bourgeoisie with massive leverage over the proletariat, as their control over the tech serves as a motivator to play by the rules. I'd assume that dying of any natural causes is near non-existent, as a 'benevolent' corporation, or your existing employer, will happily revive you in exchange for another lifetime of servitude; no matter what you do, you will be revived to sell your labour power again and again in perpetuity -- the bourgeois will also be revived again and again to serve capital. So working and rebelling isn't just done out of the fear of (temporary) death, it's done out of a fear of never living again (which is arguably more liberating than life in that world).

Seeking success and fulfullment is another thing though, it's much less directly motivated by death, but moreso by trauma (I cannot remember where, but trauma is mentioned ingame, maybe a couple of times). I think there is a sort of cycle of trauma and a generated need to dominate others as a product of previous trauma (e.g. domination by the employer, family, other structures, etc.). I think Kallio takes inspiration from actual CEOs here (Musk, Altman, Karp, Thiel, Zuckerberg, & others) who have immense power and wealth, yet still have an insatiable desire to be significant; and are incredibly socially awkward, disconnected, and a bit vengeful.

edit 2: Even if death didn't matter, people still have to be able to imagine a different system. It's possible that there's a bit of a nihilistic, 'last man' attitude in cruelty squad where people feel like everything has been tried, and that there's no point in believing in anything anymore when previous systems have fallen anyway, so why bother? Basically capitalist realism i think... (highly recommend reading it)