[sanswork]

But not many. Almost everyone will take the loss because the cost of saying screw you is double the cost of the product itself. They could cut their losses get half back and buy the product elsewhere and they'd have the same amount of money but the full product.

I remember pointing this out about every month or so in 2014 when it seemed everyone and their dog were posting this method of escrow.

[stevedekorte]

The results of the Ultimatum game psychology experiments suggests almost everyone will act punitively. See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimatum_game

And we only need 51% to act punitively to ensure all fraudsters go bankrupt.

[exo762]

Do you see a better way of doing distributed (maybe anonymous) markets? I don't have much faith in OpenBazaar since their reliance on trusted 3rd parties mean that they are wide open to collusion between party and arbiter.

[sanswork]

No but that doesn't make this a good way or a safe way.

I don't have much faith in openbazaar either because they offer nothing more than a shopping cart software would get you but require a software download to use.