🎜 If I'd Fifty Steem Backed Dollars 🎝 ...

... to the tune of Barenaked Ladies - If I Had a Million Dollars

Once again, I'm taking part in a contest. This time it was published by @greenacrehome who wants to know What Would You Do With $50 SBD? At first I was pretty sure I would not participate in this contest. The reason, I thought, would be my overly simple answer, which on one hand was nothing extraordinary or exciting, on the other hand would disqualify me anyway, as it has nothing to do with with homesteading, at least not directly. But I would NOT spend 50 SBD on anything for my homestead, or any other thing for that matter, other than powering up. Looking at the posts of other contestants, it seems like I'm not the only one who feels like this.

Money for my Homestead?

It's not like there are no expenses on my homestead. For example, my solar dehydrator needs a new roof, badly. Now I probably could get a nice piece of corrugated metal for less than 50 SBD, even if I buy it new. However, I'd much rather score something discarded for free, even if it's a (s)crap piece of fiberglass like the one that's now on it, which gets completely eaten up by the sun by the second year. Just knowing, that by doing so I'm giving some material another round of usefulness before ending up in our oceans, makes up for it. Not to mention the inconvenience of converting the SBD to BTC and then MXN, before being able to spend it is just not worth it. So no, I prefer to keep the money in my Steemit wallet. But converting the winnings to Steem Power, so that my future upvotes can have an additional cent, I didn't see that as a competitive answer, so I decided to withhold my participation this time...

… Until An Inspiration Hit Me!

Granted, it came on gradually. Playing around with a few wishes, I managed to mash them up into an idea, and after days of brooding over it I finally cobbled together a somewhat half-baked plan. Though I think it has some good potential. Let me see if I can lay it out for you. It all started with a simple request:

Sending Mead to India

Our fellow steemian @ecoknowme asked me if I could send him a bottle of my mead. I can't begin to explain how excited I got. “Of course,” I said. I was even willing to do it for free, even though at the market I would get 150 pesos for it. After all, I was going to strengthen a connection on Steemit, and have someone, somewhere in the world taste my product! So I said I would even pay for the shipping, if he in return could cover these fees in Steem. It all seemed like a great idea, until I contacted our favorite shipping companies (UPS, DHL, and FedEx) and found out that the cost of sending a full bottle from Mexico to India would cost more than 50 Steem (73USD or 1300 MXN). I don't know about @ecoknowme, but I find this price is a bit steep, even for such a beautiful action... by itself, that is!

But What If We Made A Chain... or better a Ring?

So this is my idea: If I win the 50 SBD, I would use it to send a bottle of mead (or some other product of mine) to another steemian homesteader who has something else they make, and who wants to participate in our ring-chain-thing. This other product they would have to send to a third participant, similarly for free, paying only for the shipping. The shipping fees would come exclusively from all the participants in the ring, using only Steemit to generate them. That means, once I've sent out my bottle, I and all other ring-members would start writing certain articles, specifically dedicated to raising the funds for the next shipping fee. We could have the rewards for those certain articles be paid out in SBD only, and transfer those funds to the person whose turn it is to send the next item. Apart from these articles, we would all make our usual posts, and be paid for them in the usual way. But maybe 1-2 articles a week could be planned, written, posted, and voted specifically to make this exchange ring possible.

What's So Good About This Idea?

First of all, I would get someone in Australia, Japan, Canada, or Wherever taste my mead, even if only once. I don't know why I'm so excited about this, as it hardly increases my customer base. Still...
Even though I'd be the first participant to send something out, I would have something to look forward to that someone else would send me, at some point... IF the circle is completed. All the more reason to make sure it's continued, by posting, voting, fundraising, etc.
By following the exchange I would establish an even closer relationship with other steemians interested in participating. In a group effort we would probably improve on this very idea itself, for example by establishing a strategic route. For example, the 50 SBD are not enough to ship from here to India, but to the US most probably. From there someone else could send something to Europe, and another person something to India, then on to Australia, and so on. If some of the 50 SBD is left over, I'd send it on to the next person to add it to cover the next shipping fees. Like I said, the details are still to be worked out, but that's what we as a group have several brains for.
Applying the same perspective to others, I can imagine that the combination of a closer interaction, and some type of material (tangible, maybe even edible) reward can get us all into a collective enthusiasm, matched only by some really fun games. I could even imagine people wanting to join the ring once the first items have arrived (and the participants have posted extensively about them).
Final outcome: No matter how much fun we have during the ride, at some point it will be over, and we'll end up with an empty bottle, jar, or box. Then what? We will have spent a huge sum of money (albeit generated out of our collective effort) on what? Well, first of all, on inter-personal relationships, with people from around the globe, who have one thing in common: our passion for producing stuff at home. Having gone through all this together will create a bond that won't just disappear. But also, the public resonance (and yeah, this could be big, or it could be HUMONGOUS depending only on us) we generate on Steemit. And that will not go away either. In fact, depending on the crowds drawn by this action and the posts relating to it, more money could be generated in the long run than all the shipping fees combined.

Any Disadvantages?

Okay, now that I got this far, I don't want to close without looking at the downsides of this idea, which honestly has been a part of my concern too:

One is the fact that we'd spend our money on fueling airplanes (or container ships) and thus adding unnecessarily to our carbon footprint.
The other one is simply the money that could be spent on our homestead projects anyway (or our personal SP), instead of sending our goods on a joyride around the world.

Okay, Do the Pros Outweigh the Cons?

If they do, I'd say let's go for it! Who else thinks this could be a good idea? Any suggestions for improving it? Even if it turns out to be no more than a pipe-dream, I'd still like to hear all your opinions about it. It might take shape in a different form, or if nothing else it gets our combined creativity flowing. At the very least, I got to participate in this great contest, so already I feel like it was worth typing all this. Thanks to all for reading, and to @greenacrehome for hosting the contest. And now, since I need a second visual and you've probably been humming it anyway since the beginning of this post, let's lean back and enjoy this catchy little tune with all the wonderful ideas on what you could do with a lot of money. Here is If I Had A Million Dollars by the Barenaked Ladies: