What is worse is finding out the counter party shouldn't have been trusted. Escrows in the fiat world are composed of some group or third party that has a high reputation.
Suppose someone, Bob, wants to buy a heater. Bob, knows that Samantha has a heater. Should Bob send Sam the money first, then pray that Sam will follow through and send the heater? Should Bob wait for delivery before sending the money? If neither arrangement is acceptable, you can have an Escrow agent. Let us say, Bob and Sam both trust Elizabeth, who will act as the Escrow agent. The buyer sends the money to Elizabeth and once the heater arrives, Elizabeth sends the money to Sam.
Let's say that Bob offers to pay Sam for some typing work. Elizabeth gets the money from Bob before Sam starts and once finished and verified to be complete and correct, Elizabeth sends the money to Sam.
Suppose a person Bob wants to leave his Hive holdings to Samantha. Bob sends 20,000 HBD to the escrow agent. If Bob passes away, Sam will get this money. However Bob can change his mind at anytime earlier and reclaim the money left with the escrow agent(Elizabeth).
Suppose Bob and Sam make a bet. The bet is whether the new prime minister of Canada will wear a red tie when he is sworn in. Here the escrow agent keeps the money from both players until the bet is agreed on who won or the escrow agent invokes arbitration and sends the money to the winning party.
We can even do better with Hive: A lot of the functionality can be done with multisignature Hive accounts. The escrow agent doesn't need to handle money. The escrow agent just signs the correct transaction, either sending the funds back to Bob or sending them to Sam.
Please drop a reply in the comments if this would be useful to you. I can act as an Escrow agent if anyone needs me to. Multisignature accounts require a wallet that supports that. If someone will fund me with a the Hive DHF or some other way please get in touch.
