I think if Blizzard is going to not only encourage paid carries, but actually profit from the entire player on player services driven economy, they need to either make the transactions a supported thing, or implement something like the OP discussed.
I can’t imagine it would be too hard for some type of interface to be developed where both parties agree on a price and at what point the gold will be released (death of a boss, attainment of achievement, looting of a mount etc).
It could work like OP said, they don’t need a GM, they just need an NPC or LFG option where you all sign up with certain conditions set and the items and gold only transfer once the conditions are met, including failsafe conditions.
Like sure, sign up for an M16 timed for 100K all loot to the buyer, but have a failsafe that says untimed for 50K and nothing if someone leaves. Done problem solved, no one gets ripped off.
It’s almost like there’s an clandestine revenue stream with RMT carries that someone at Activision is running as rogue employee group or a shell company and they took out their competition.
They put a lot more effort into that than the blatant RMT adds all over LFG.
Id like to point out that the major issue of these escrow carry groups was that they began paying people in gold/carry runs for advertising to the point that thousands of accounts were made solely for the purpose of spamming advertising - you could pay for the entire account from the gold earnt, just from advertising.
It created a circle that became a detriment to the game - when you couldnt find a m+ group inbetween hundreds of carry ads or couldnt even read various in game chats.
That and the amount of gold that ended up in rmt.
The only advertising I’ve ever seen in game, before and after, are the adds with blatant links to RMT sites.
With a little ebb and flow, and through all the added restrictions like needing leveled characters with authentication to post groups, the level of adds with un masked clear text links to RMT sites has been unchanged since BfA.
More than anything else, the outcome more closely matches a regulatory body that’s been captured by the industry they regulate and has put in regulations that hurt competitors more by creating a barrier to entry.
So you never seen any of the advertising for the wts on behalf of escrow discords? It was 95% of trade chat and 80% of m+/raid finder groups. Those listing them never had a group it was 100% advertising with a discord link - i know players that hit a io rank and could earn more for being part of a carry run, they stopped doing the runs and just started advertising because it made them more gold.
This is why the trade services channel was addeed - to remove the constant spam from lfg/trade chat.
You can still use an escrow service - you cannot advertise it in game.
So I open up LFG tool and look at premade dungeons and see 5 WTS groups with links to an RMT sites. And no WTS adds for in game gold. Same as it’s been since I came back at the start of BfA. How many years is that?
Can’t speak for the services channel. I’m sure there are legit adds there since that’s it purpose, but I don’t have that channel turned on.
But lets be honest here. Probably over $100 million a year sitting on the table in RMT game services. Is it completely out of the realm of possibilities that Bobby might try and get his cut of that money?
Yep. You no longer see hundreds of adds for carries for ingame gold - any server. These rmt sites dont care about the ingame rules - right click and report for advertising so blizz can ban the tens of thousands created for this purpose.
What did change is max level players no longer actually doing any runs, they just got paid an advertising fee for connecting a buyer to a seller - this is against the tos.
Blizz already made their money when they sold a game account (wow still costs money right) even if that account was purchased with in game gold as someone paid cash for a token, sold it for gold and then a game was purchased with a token > bnet balance. Someone paid.
I don’t think Blizzard should support carriers at all buyer beware.
LoL, Have been for years.
And it used to be you could come in later in the week in see they’ve been listed for days. Although it looks like they relist them fairly regularly now.
Are you actually arguing that corporations go “we already made some money, no need to make more”?
Hate the term, but that argument kind of does raise to the level of gaslighting.
Interesting perspective.
I wish you the very best of luck in your future endevours, right click reporting is very easy to do now and often you get feedback that an account you flagged had action taken upon it.
Please this is nonsense. “Peak WoW”, which most would erroneously claim was Wrath, was rife with GDKP runs which are, essentially, carries with variable prices for the gear and a variable payout at the end.
The OPs idea is just plain stupid too. The logic that would need to be implemented even at a basic level for it to function is just insane. What constitutes a “deal”? How are the terms to be measured? What is to stop the carry player from just lying and saying they didn’t receive their run or the run wasn’t to their satisfaction? What if the carry person ends up being a troll and intentionally trying to wipe the group so other players get screwed for the lawls? These are just surface thoughts too.
Just be good enough to get the things on your own merit or accept that it really doesn’t matter and don’t let FOMO mess you up otherwise.
What? 
Yeah, original wrath had tons of gdkps. I don’t know what this wistful “ugh i miss when people just played the game” when there was basically always massive demand for carries. 
That’s just your opinion, lol. GDKP runs existed, but they weren’t literally every group.
I finished Heroic Lich King in a PuG, no GDKP to be seen.
Trade chat today, is full of carries and gold sales.
Retail is just a gold selling and cosmetics marketplace, playing the game is optional. Thanks, WoWtoken.
I’d rather engage with Hardcore where that’s not an option at all, lol.
Everyone in Hardcore is forced to play, period.
Aren’t every run on live either.
You should see classic.
People just bought gold from unofficial sites back in the day.
Classic Hardcore =/= Classic.
The fleeting nature of being able to lose everything at a whim, makes people not play it like retail and sit on mountains of gold that’ll never run dry.
I love it, because it keeps Retail players away.
What? People just mail all their gold to a bank alt. You never “lose everything”. Stop larping.
They’d have to level all over again if they want to make use of those bank alts.
Yeah, but you never lose your gold, and they still haven’t hotfixed petris out so most people can never die either. More like softcore, lmao. 
The things people do when they can’t get into keys, I guess.
Listen, Kennie, I will never do keys.
Ya’ll all like to pat yourselves on the back because you’re PvE heroes, but no ones cares about that. No one but ya’ll.
PvP is dead, my WoW as I loved it, is dead.
Retail isn’t the game I love, not anymore. Not since Legion, probably.
So, Classic is the next best iteration of the game. The world feels like a world.
And, most importantly, the lore isn’t complete trash. It feels cohesive.
Everyone likes to stomp on people for not playing retail.
I’d just like to tell ya’ll, it’s not as fun as you guys make it out to be.
It’s why Dragonflight is dwindling.
Some of us want a social experience, and retail isn’t social, far form it.
It’s less MMO than WoW ever was.
Hardcore brings back the sense of community because everything is designed to kill you- everyone huddles together in times of difficulty.