Before I begin I don't claim to be an expert on this, I have a PS4 and have never paid for online either.
From my perspective the quality of online play on Wii was pretty bad. I remember trying to play Brawl and giving up because the game lagged so much. I also recall painful match ups leading to large gaps between matches and a crashing system (when they drop out) - not necessarily Nintendos fault but there was no attempt to improve this. BUT it was free! So why complain? In addition I was allowed to pay for and download the odd classic game, fine by me.
Now we have Switch, I tried Ultimate using the online trial, my experience? Pretty much the same as the Wii days. Except now we pay... and I'm also asked to pay to store my Pokemon... oh AND again to transfer from previous generations.
And then we have expansion passes, anyone remember this?:
"And one thing Nintendo has determined as a company policy, what we are not going to do is create a full game and then say, ‘let's hold this back for DLC.' That's not our plan. We're definitely not doing that" - 2012 Iwata
Im sorry but that is definitely happening nowdays, again Pokemon being a big culprit.
If the service was more reliable and more was included I'd consider paying, but when the best they've got is "pay significantly more to not own these games"... I'm just not interested.
Then I compare this to my online FREE experience on Steam? No competition.
