ooh, ooh, pick me. I know this one.
It's that when you pay an escrow, you're paying for a neutral, third party.
I'm thinking out loud here, but does escrow the necessarily need to be a third party?
What if I want to trade with a higher trust alt of the person instead? I would imagine that people would pay extra for that privilege.
Even if you do use a third party that is a different physical person that person could still collude with the other person and scam you.
The problem is that the seller and escrow must not collude.
Does it really make a difference if they are the same person? it might increase the risk they collude but even that is kind of hard to say.
IMHO if the escrow is honest and tells beforehand it is fine.
otherwise it is deceiving and kind of a lie.