Sooo we all know how trash the Nintendo Switch App is, and Sony and Microsoft are probably laughing at us now. I just can't understand why Nintendo can't be normal and be like Playstation and Xbox?... Hell, even the PS3 has a better online experience (11 years old!).  "children must be kept safe!" I'm pretty sure more children has Xbox and Playstation than Nintendo Switch. The Wii U even had a better experience. When they released the Switch, they took many steps back. So the Parental App is useless? What's the point of the Parental App when you still didn't add UPDATED online features to the Switch?

What would Nintendo say to these questions? "My son doesn't have a tablet or phone so how is he gonna talk to his friends?" "Is voice chat an improvement over the Wii U?" "I met this person playing Mario kart, how do I send a message without the app?" Nintendo wouldn't know what to say.

This is what Playstation/Xbox will always have over the Nintendo, and that's having updated/normal online experience.  As a Nintendo fan, it's embarrasing to say that Switch doesn't have party chat without a weird app. NOT EVERYONE (Including the protected children) HAS A PHONE. 

if I knew this earlier I would've waited on buying a Switch until Nintendo does something about it. Like look at the Splatoon 2 set up. All those wires.

Like you CANNOT tell me that it's normal or okay for Nintendo for doing this.   

Why does Nintendo think every gamer has tons of gamer friends? All my friends aren't gamers. When I do find friends who play games it's always Playstation or Xbox. I'm so sick of the "Give your friends your friend code so you can add them and not search up players by username online" feature.             

It's normal and okay for Nintendo to be doing this.

I agree it's par for the course for Nintendo.  I don't agree that it's ok.

Incompetence, I hope. The other answers are they really don't know/understand how it works, or they just don't care.

I don't care about chat for most Nintendo games. Still, this is so ridiculous that I see it as a pretty big strike against the Switch.

Because they are so innovative. Good move by Nintendo.

Most of the problems outside of in-game audio (which I think can be solved via bluetooth) seem to be fixable on the software side. I think it's good for people to let Nintendo know about all of the negatives in their online app so that they can hopefully make the best out of this situation but I'm not going to cast final judgement until they start asking for money (which probably gives them half a year).  I wouldn't be surprised if they were having a lot of difficulty programming this app and were given no other option but to release everything they had so far to coincide with Splatoon 2's launch.  It would account for all of the problems so far and the delay for the paid service.

I think a lot of people are also forgetting that all of us early adopters are basically beta testers for Nintendo's paid service.  That's why it's still free.

We need to have an official poll to decide if people think it's incompetence or just plain greed. Count me in for greed.

You can have pretty normal online experience with Switch if you don't need voice chat.
I personally never in life used online chat in games.

This isn't just voice chat though, is it? Aren't there more features in there like scoreboard and lobby and chat?

It seems the whole online play experience is offloaded to the app.