While I don't think this was anyone's plan, I think setting it for two days was brilliant by accident. It was short enough (and long enough) that spez dismissed it and pissed people off even more.

It would have been much harder to rally subs to turn off permanently immediately. By doing this, you ease everyone into the idea that this is an indefinite blackout.

The next step will be Reddit admins forcibly taking control of subs that stay blacked out too long for their liking, which will drive even more momentum to stand up to them.

I think this was actually just about the only way for them to completely fuck Reddit over. At this point, spez will need to be fired and the changes rolled back or Reddit has zero chance of a meaningful recovery.