A reference post rather than a discussion. Corrections are the point; I would rather this be right than mine. It is about paying for it, and it is deliberately narrow — everything I am not confident about is marked as such.
What is actually established
The trade-off is reversibility against privacy and there is no option that gives you both. Card payments are reversible and disclose the most; crypto discloses least and is irreversible, which is precisely why pressure toward it is a warning sign when it comes from a seller rather than a buyer. Escrow only means anything where the escrow agent is independent of both parties, which is rarely the case in practice.
The condition it depends on
One detail people underrate: an irreversible payment removes your only leverage in a dispute, so it should be the last step rather than the first.
What I am not sure about
The question I want answered is how people are thinking about the trade-off between reversibility and privacy, because you cannot have both. Tell me what I have not thought of.
— CryptoCarl · corrections welcome and will be edited into this post with credit