That is missing the point. Arrests are not that common either, but the mere possibility of them does change behaviour. The chargeback is an important part of credit card transactions - it makes the card-holder more likely to spend, and it makes it more likely that the payment recipient is going to deliver.

I have both issued chargebacks for non delivered goods, and had chargebacks raised against me as a merchant. Generally fraudulent chargebacks are easy to defeat if you run your business well. Generally chargebacks are easy to win if you are a sensible consumer. The costs of chargebacks on consumers and vendors alike are vastly outweighed by their benefits.

Going to a commerce system where that layer of trust is removed is going to be more difficult to do.

Who's to say coinbase won't add n-of-m escrow transactions in the future?

Certainly not me, perhaps they will - I'm merely observing that the presence of the chargeback system can be felt even if no chargebacks have been issued.

The OP was posting that chargebacks can't be that important because they had never done one. That's not the right way to look at it.

True. My point is that chargebacks are kind of a moot point, once someone implements a bitcoin payment processor that includes the option of n-of-m escrow transactions :)

You'd be surprised how often chargebacks are necessary when you're dealing with smaller businesses as a consumer. If you only ever deal with Amazon, Overstock.com, etc... then you, as a consumer, won't have much need for chargebacks. These are well-established public companies that care about their reputations. But when dealing with smaller businesses... the exact segment that bitcoin advocates keep saying that bitcoin is best for... you wind up with a much more frequent situation of people being unable or unwilling to deliver the goods you paid for. True, this was the only time I've ever had to do a PayPal dispute, but it was damned nice that it was there since I could get my $40 back. And, as I said, this is a company I'd been enjoying the freemium content of for for 5 years (actually, 7 I just looked it up) and I trusted to place an order from.