RE: Vote for 4 Weeks Power Down! Vote for @thecryptodrive Witness!
What problem(s) are you solving with changing the powerdown period to 4 weeks?
Is the intended result to bring more investors? I don't understand how bringing more investors will help. It seems to me that investors come and go and the net effect is the same. It also seems that what Steem really needs is more users. So changes made have to be about meeting the needs of users. Whether a 4-week powerdown is better for most users than a 13-week powerdown should be carefully discussed and data has to be gathered from the community (and from 'normies' who are not on Steem) about it. I don't know which of the two powerdown periods (or some other one) will serve people better - it seems worthwhile to investigate the matter (i.e. work from as much data as possible, rather than only opinion).
A 4-week powerdown may also cause disintegration and destabilization. Such possible negative effects also better be investigated much more thoroughly.
What do you think?
A user who spends 100 USD and powers up is still an investor, do you think most people would risk personal funds to power up for a long period? I am of the view that Steem would be less daunting and user friendly if the lockup period was shorter and thus less objectionable. This sets a good base for Steem for when it does become more popular, I am under no illusion that the price of Steem will rise instantly because of this, however it helps mold Steem to a more mature and robust economy, remember we compete with EOS that has a 3 day lockup period only. SMT's will be competing with other chains like NEO etc, so has to be attractive for SMT projects to join with reasonable lockup periods.
Yep, it may very well be the case that most ordinary people may not want to power up if the lockup period is 13 weeks. Then again, how many ordinary people have we contacted and recorded feedback from? I imagine you have formed your views from interacting with some people and hearing from them that 13 weeks is way too much. What I'm saying is, let's do more proper research and find out exactly what troubles these people and check what they think about possible solutions (e.g. a 4-week lockup period). That would be more solid research that we can all be informed by. Agreement on intervention will follow.
Also, pros and cons of any proposal have to be identified and fed into the intervention. What you say about the pros of changing the lockup period to 4 weeks may be valid, but there may also be unidentified/unintended really bad negative consequences.
I'm only calling for better research and decision making than "let's get majority rule", if you see what I mean.