Returning to satoshi's outline scheme:


The buyer can't benefit by failing to pay, that's true, but it's also true that the buyer has no incentive to "get around to" releasing the payment.

Suppose you send a laptop to a buyer. The buyer receives the laptop and forgets to release the payment, so you have to chase them up. Or the buyer says "yeah I got the laptop, but I need to check that it works OK before I release the payment". Then later they say "I'll release the payment if the laptop is still OK at the end of the guarantee period".

The seller is pretty-much powerless in this case, and the buyer has no reason to want to release the payment, other than their repuation. But if we're successfully tracking reputation, then why not cut the escrow out of this situation?