Quote from: Quickseller on September 11, 2015, 09:38:09 PM

Quote from: Keyser Soze on September 11, 2015, 09:27:03 PM

We seem to be discussing different things here. I am not talking about someone trusting an escrow with an amount of money, I am taking about trusting the escrow will be neutral and act with as little bias as possible if a dispute were to occur.

Lets look at two scenarios:

1) Alice and Bob conduct a trade with Charlie acting as escrow. All three parties are different people.
2) Alice and Bob conduct a trade with Daniel acting a escrow. Alice thinks Bob and Daniel are different people, but secretly Bob and Daniel are the same person.

If a dispute were to occur during the trade (for example, an honest misunderstanding), would you rather be Alice in scenario 1 or 2?

You are missing the point. If I trust someone with some amount of money then I will send first to them when trading with them, no escrow necessary. Any dispute would get resolved the exact same way if scenario 2 were to happen.

It is not necessary to use escrow in every trade you participate in assuming that one party is sufficiently trusted.

Quote from: Quickseller on September 11, 2015, 09:39:47 PM

If I trusted Daniel enough to use him as escrow then there would be zero reason to ask to use escrow for a similar trade.

In both scenarios Alice is expecting the escrow to resolve the dispute as a third party. Alice has no reason to suspect the escrow has any bias towards Alice or Bob.
In scenario 1, Charlie is able to act without bias because he is an independent party.
In scenario 2, Daniel is unable to act without bias because he is also acting as a party to the trade.

Scenario 1 will always be more favorable for Alice compared to scenario 2 since there is no bias. Also, by definition, Daniel is not an escrow to the trade since he is not a third party.

As I stated previously, it is misleading and disingenuous to act as if you were providing an escrow service when you really are not.