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I asked a question which I reasonably assume that someone here must have encountered (or encountered something very similar to it) before. I'm optimistic that if it got good attention, then I would receive an answer in a short time. That's because the answer to it should be a piece of cake to an expert in the field. However, the question did not get satisfactory attention and it doesn't seem to be getting anymore views than $26$ (perhaps there will be a small increase after I had posted this question).

Anyway, why do we have to wait two days in order to start a bounty? It is my own reputation that's decreasing, no one is getting hurt!

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One reason is that an active bounty prevents the question from being put on hold. This makes some sense if and only if the community had some prior chance to decide on the question's suitability.

Another reason is that having too many bounties decreases their efficiency. So, you putting a bounty on a question (where it might not be needed right away) has some negative effect for others having bountied questions.

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    $\begingroup$ But a bounty costs the user at least $50$ reputation. Users with high reputation do not usually ask many questions (if at all), users with low reputation (say $\le 100$) won't pay an such amount of their reputation, and new users can't even offer bounties. $\endgroup$
    – user207710
    Mar 3, 2015 at 21:21
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    $\begingroup$ I do not see how this invalidates the reasons. I would not want that somebody could even ask a single quite argumentative question without the community being able to intervene. (Especially not on a site like this were for better or worse moderator-intervention causes additional friction.) $\endgroup$
    – quid Mod
    Mar 3, 2015 at 22:37
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    $\begingroup$ To elaborate a little: The community can provide feedback through other means than closing a question - I certainly very often revise my questions based on community feedback (in comments) before placing a bounty on them. Given that bounty questions are more visible, it is desirable that they be well-reviewed by the community. $\endgroup$
    – Milo Brandt
    Mar 4, 2015 at 0:24

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