I am not saying that I agree with the article, but I think his point is that consumers inherently trust all types of electronic transactions because there is a belief that these are reverseable. I, the consumer, am protected from fraud.
Examples:
If my credit card number is stolen I am only responsible for $50.
If I order something online and get ripped off I can initiate a chargeback.
We bitcoiners love to brag about the irreversibility of BTC, but it is this very attribute that scares the buyer. Now I fully understand that consumers are not protected nearly as much as they think, but they believe that they are. "buyer protection" protocols must be implemented before Average Joe will start using them.
Again, that is what escrow is for. The concept of needing the chargeback/reversal capability is not required. Using escrow allows for consumer protection, even better than the ability to request a chargeback. Rather than paying then (possibly) fighting for your money back by proving something went wrong, instead the transaction is just held in escrow until parties are satisfied that everything is right. If it isn't, then the transaction is cancelled (?). (That's one point of the escrow [m-of-n] option that I have not been able to clear up for me - what happens if you don't get m-of-n parties to agree? Does the transaction automatically get cancelled after a point in time?)