In the original whitepaper and indeed for several months on Steemit you could only power down 1/104th of your account. In one of the Hardforks, memory deserts me which one, that was changed to 13 weeks. That allowed people who had decided that Steemit wasn't for them to divest themselves sooner.
If you check the @steemitblog you should be able to find a recently updated whitepaper which should reflect the 13 weeks rather than the 104 weeks in the original whitepaper.
Thanks for the information, this is interesting. In the updated whitepaper they say:
"In the cryptocurrency space, speculators jump from cryptocurrency to cryptocurrency based mostly on
which one is expected to have short-term growth. Steem wants to build a community that is mostly owned
and entirely controlled by those with a long-term perspective.
Users are able to commit their STEEM to a thirteen week vesting schedule, providing them with
additional benefits within the platform. STEEM that has been committed to a thirteen week vesting
schedule is called Steem Power (SP). SP balances are non-transferrable and non-divisible except via the
automatically recurring conversion requests. This means that SP cannot be easily traded on
cryptocurrency exchanges."
This move seems a bit curious to me as a 13 week vesting period is far shorter than the previous 104 week vesting period. It is basically down to about 3 months. So the 1-week power down strategy doesn't really make that much sense anymore.
If anyone else is curious about this and wants to read more, here is the link to the whitepaper: https://steemit.com/steem/@steemitblog/a-radically-updated-steem-whitepaper and also something they are calling a bluepaper: https://steemit.com/steem/@steemitblog/announcing-the-steem-bluepaper
I think the one week power down period has a value from a long-term investment prospect.
In another life I did insolvency counselling with clients dealing with financial issues. One of the tongue in cheek suggestions I used to make to clients when they got a credit card back in orderto rebuild their credit was to place the card in a bowl of water and place it in the freezer. When they wanted to spend using the card they would then have to wait for it to thaw which would give them time to reconsider the necessity of the expenditure.
The one week power down provides that cooling off period to think about the withdrawal.
As for changing the period to fully power down, it became clear that for investors who wanted or might want to draw down their investment, two years was too long to tie their money down. Thirteen weeks was a more workable commitment.
Least from the discussions I've seen, that is my take.