Shorter power-down periods? Sure, for a fee!

I am still fully powered up and haven't powered down a cent since I came on Steem. At the same time I tend to have a different opinion when it comes to STEEM liquidity than other Steemians who followed the same path over the months or even years.

I don't believe scarcity in liquidity is the way. That is a sure way to keep people with money out, because they don't want to become trapped in an investment they don't really understand at first. And they don't have time or interest to start building up an account or interest.

So, proposals to increase STEEM liquidity on the markets, other than increase inflation obviously, I am willing to consider.

For a while, I thought the idea of shorter power-down periods could have no additional value in it, other than the thought of speculating on the price, which would make STEEM more volatile and probably quicker to respond to general crypto trends.

But I've seen it brought it up again.

So I gave it some thought. Maybe we shouldn't be so quick to dismiss it, although it would be a huge one to swallow I think, by risk-averse people.

We pride ourselves with our no transaction fee blockchain. And we should!

But maybe in this particular case there should be instated a fee.

You want to wait 13 weeks for your full power down? Everything should remain as it is now.

You want to speed up the power down process to, let's say 7 days? Pay a considerable fee and it's done.

Someone who wants to exit as soon as possible no matter what will pay the fee and be done with it.

Someone who wants to stay powered up will continue to stay powered up.

Someone who would occasionally power down for various reasons, would have to weigh whether it's worth waiting for 13 weeks or pay the fee and do it in 7 days.

The advantage of a 7-day process is everything would end much quicker, liquidity would probably increase as a whole, while still providing a protection of one week (notifications should be sent by the specialized services every day and be clearly visible on major interfaces, with a link to a post explaining what to do if you haven't set up the power down process yourself). The disadvantage is that enough people would feel unsettled by this change and the security of their vested STEEM.

The interesting part. What can be done with the fees, if such a path would be taken?

• distribute them to active backup and backup to backups witnesses (up to 100) automatically
• same as above, distribute in reverse order, based on seniority of active witness, or other relevant criterion (to cover server costs mainly, from the point where this becomes an issue)
• Witness Development Fund managed by elected witnesses from Top 40(?) (other witnesses in Top 40 should elect the managers of the fund; public voting from each manager on who should receive the funding; funding could go to any developer or project that adds great value to the blockchain, not necessarily a witness which is a developer)
• support rule-enforcing, community growing, curation projects etc.
• charity

I don't know what kind of funds would such a fee bring, if instated. Or what the sentiment toward it will be. But if the full funds are practically donations to such causes or other similar (please feel free to add your own), maybe fewer would object. To the fee I mean. To the reduced power down period idea, I believe there will still be opposition. With good reason to some extent, if this is generalized and everyone starts treating their vesting "account" as a checking account.