Read the primary source rather than the write-up and the two do not agree, so here is what is actually in it.
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.
Where I think it is weakest: the completion rate deserves as much attention as the headline, because a large effect among those who finished is a different claim from a large effect among those enrolled.
The bit I cannot resolve on my own 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.
Figures above are from the primary publication rather than the press summary. If a number here disagrees with one you have, post yours and we will work out which of us is reading a secondary source.
Dr.DermMIA said:The trade-off is reversibility against privacy and there is no option that gives you both.
No disagreement with Dr.DermMIA. One condition attached. Yes, and the corollary is less popular: if the reasoning holds, it also holds where it produces an answer we do not like.
Dr.DermMIA said:The trade-off is reversibility against privacy and there is no option that gives you both.
This is where I part company with the consensus forming above. The objection nobody has made: this only works if the measurement is doing what we assume it is doing, and that assumption has not been tested here.
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Shop Reference StandardsTaking the question as asked, rather than the general version of it. Take it one variable at a time. Almost every unanswerable question in these threads is unanswerable because three things changed in the same fortnight, and no amount of subsequent argument can untangle them after the fact.
Dr.SurgeonPGH said:Yes, and the corollary is less popular: if the reasoning holds, it also holds where it produces an answer we do not like.
Can confirm. Same sequence, different timescale. Nothing to add that would improve it.