Fully ensconced in baby-oriented PSSs

We opened a new toy for the little girl last night, and she was unbelievably thrilled. She can't sit up quite yet, but she launched herself at the toy full speed, hyperventilating and grinning and giggling, and immediately attempted to gnaw on it. She's definitely in the stage where she wants to learn how new things work, rather than simply acquire new toys for the sake of having new toys.

As such, I took a quick look for a toy swap or toy PSS and found two right off the bat: toyswap.com and toystotrade.com. I'm joining both of them and will see what I can find. The latter says "FREE 6 month membership" but they state that they are not currently charging for memberships. Toyswap.com is not as pretty of a web site but it does have the advantage that you can post a photo of your toy. Toyswap uses a site currency system, toyswap credits, rather like Paperbackswap, which are used only for transaction fees. Toystotrade seems simpler, with no credit system.

However, both sites are limited to synchronous direct swaps (i.e barter) -- that is, if you find a toy that you want, you have to actually provide a toy that the other party wants in order for a swap to go through. You can't, for example, send out 30 toys and accumulate 30 toys' worth of credits toward future swaps.

You can also buy and sell for cash though. I'm not sure I see that this is any more advantageous than simply using ebay. Toystotrade, on the other hand, doesn't seem to allow buying and selling.

Unfortunately, and here is where it gets a little on the cerebral side, I will probably not use these sites very much due to what I think is a miscalculation on the part of the site owners.

Since neither of these systems works like Bookmooch or Kizoodle, there is a fundamental flaw. I suspect that the lack of listings (as compared to a bookmooch or a kizoodle) is due to a very simple axiom:

Child A is younger than Child B.

That's it. Also, it could be stated "Child B is older than Child A," if you prefer not to show alphanumeric bias.

• Some children will be getting rid of toys because they have grown tired of them.
• Some children will be getting rid of toys because they have outgrown them.
• But, (here's the asymmetry) no children will be getting rid of toys because they are too young for them.

Why would a person with an 8 year old, checking on a toy discarded by a 10 year old, be expected to have a toy that the 10 year old would be interested in?

WARNING: Theorizing ahead

In contrast, if you have 10 children, ages 1 through 10, with 10 age-appropriate toys to discard (e.g. the 10 year old has a toy appropriate for a 9 year old that s/he has grown out of), then you can arrange it so that they all post the toys into the system and the toys can be claimed by the next youngest child without having to trade anything in return. It's an asynchronous indirect swap system. Try to pair up those kids for barter -- you think the 10 year old will want the toy that the 4 year old has outgrown? But do it asynchronously, and the system smooths right out.

For example, the 10 year old posts the Age 9 toy and the 9 year old claims it, while in turn posting an Age 8 toy, which is claimed by the 8 year old and so on down to the 1 year old. The oldest child is at a disadvantage, but that will probably be true regardless.

Now, in the real world, direct swapping will still sorta-kinda work because age-appropriate ranges are so fuzzy and children develop at different rates -- your advanced baby has outgrown the ubiquitous Little Einstein DVDs by age 2, but someone else's 4 year old has a cute rocking horse to trade and still likes Little Einstein.

In specific cases it will work, but I maintain that the generalized case is flawed. The highly successful swap PSSs avoid direct swapping; some of them allow it, but none rely on it.