If a game is Switch exclusive and helps move Switch hardware and grow the userbase, then that benefits me and others like me as Switch owners because then we get more games to play on our platform of choice.

Well, game awards and critics tend to agree with me so...

Not all opinions are created equal. The general critic consensus is that Sony/Nintendo make the best games of the generation. Don't get me wrong, RDR2 should stand shoulder to shoulder with Sony/Nintendo games, but that's just one game.

Sure, you can keep or mobile for 2 even 3 years if you only use it to make calls and use Facebook, WhatsApp and so on

The question is those phones are releases here months, perhaps over a year, after the release elsewhere. Android phones has a very high planned obsolescence, the hardware is not make to survive more than 3 years with the software and system updates, besides the hardware itself degrades quickly 

3 years of planned insolence - 1 year of delay to launch the model = Less then two years of effective service life before your phone becomes crappy

I'm of course of course talking about the cheap models, the ones we can buy for 150-200 USD. Better phones (~400k USD+) can do just fine more years because the hardware is powerful enough to survive the system updates. Mine was roughly 450k USD and after 28 months still pretty useful even if the battery is not as good as before 

I like the idea of people having the freedom to play games on whatever platform they choose. Less games being taken hostage, more people having access to said games, that's a plus for me.

Just ensure that if your game is being developed to run on a potato, then that mandatory potato version of the game doesn't result in creativity and features being compromised across all other platforms.

Do they represent everyone else on the planet, let alone the userbases on PC/Xbox?.

You're taking one side over the other here at this point, completely disregarding the other.

Switch owners, myself included, are getting a benefit from the fact a formerly exclusive games (from Microsoft) are being released on Switch (Ori and the Blind Forest, Ori and Will Of Whisps, Cuphead, etc.). The same way, as a PC gamer, I'm getting a benefit from the fact Sony is releasing some of their games on PC (Detroit, Horizon Zero Dawn, Death Stranding). The fact I'm enjoing these games on different platforms doesn't hinder the enjoyment of Xbox or PS4 players, so from a genereal consumer perspective (regardless of the platform I own), in the worst case I'm not losing anything, in the best case I'm getting a benefit.

Without exclusivity you could just choose the platform with the hardware specs and features you like the most and play the games you like regardless. The userbase of a specifc console would soley depend on hardware features and not depend on artificial paywalls to access specific games.

That said, I don't realistically expect exclusives to go away anytime soon since Nintendo, MS and Sony are all getting benefit from it. At the same time as consumer, exclusives are hurting me in two ways: by making me spend more money and by limiting my choice.

I wouldn't be able to play the games I want on the platform I want though, if exclusives weren't there to build the userbase of my preferred platform to the point of it being worth supporting.

It's a bit like the chicken and egg problem...what made you choose your current platform of choice? The hardware features or its exclusive game library, or both? If you hypothesize a game market without exlcusives you can just leave one variable out of the equation, in other words regadless of what console you choose you could still potentially play any Nintendo, Sony or MS games on it. Your choice would be based just on hardware features: your favourite form factor, your favourite controller, your favourite online service, the most suitable price point, etc.

If a console, in that specific scenario, doen't get enough traction to get software support, the reason must be because its features are unappealing to the market. In that scenario, even if you 'bet on the wrong horse', the cost of switching to another console would be lower, since you don't lose access to any exclusive title.

Now, consider the same console (with the same unappealing hardware features) in the current market. Thanks to exclusives it could expand the userbase in a way that wouldn't be possible otherwise. This means players are accepting to buy a console with sub-optimal features in order to gain access to its exclusive library...I don't see this as a gain from the consumer perspective.

This reminds me of the time when Ninty itself tried to dabble in VR years ago. They had exclusive games for it, but the device itself was such utter garbage that hardly any Ninty or non Ninty fan likes to talk about that device. The device itself is a prime example of it not having goo features or the device itself being good enough to use, even with it's exclusive games, so you'd be correct, it isn't exactly and primarily down to just exclusives, but it's the device itself that has to prove it's worth. 

Then there's the PS Vita, which has proprietary memory cards, and I know a lot hated that back then. Sure it didn't have many first party games on it, but the device itself wasn't doing much of anything new, compared to DS to 3DS evolution, and the Vita lacked enough third party support and it suffered. That could be taken as a slightly different example, but things like the forced proprietary  mem cars part does add up.

I think that if the device itself isn't at all appealing, then I wouldn't buy it, even if it had exclusive software. I'm not sure why anyone would force themselves to use a device they wouldn't like, just to play something exclusive.