I see where you're coming from, but I think this attitude is rather shortsighted. Emulation is about much more than piracy, and I for example, run my switch library on my pc. I have my switch, and it's essentially a game dumping device because I have such a better experience running those games on an emulator. Why should I spend money on another switch or a switch 2 to still have a worse experience than I'm getting now? Modding my games is easy, I can use and rebind any controller I want, and run most of my games without having to swap to another device. I also care about the long term preservation of my games, and unfortunately my switch won't last forever, it's already in rough shape as is. As far as switch 2, work on emulation now is going to make the preservation of their games long term possible. Emulating switch 2 doesn't mean you don't own one, or purchase your games, not by default. Ultimately though, even if someone pirates their games for switch 2, Nintendo is fine monetarily. They'll be okay.

I don't even see downvotes, and I sort by date/time.

That said, I mostly agree with you. However, with prices and greed being what they are, and price gouging being ignored... I'd say it's more of a fair play now than ever.

That said, if you're trying to emulate a Switch 2, most likely, you'd have better luck with another platform. For one, Switch is an ARM-based system, and most Windows PCs are x86-64, so you're emulating two things, the CPU and the code base. Emulating PlayStation or Xbox would be less work, provided you even can. If you have a Mac, of course those are ARM, but their GPUs are not really meant for gaming, unless you have a Max or Ultra variant. I had someone tell me their M1 Max (or Ultra, I forget) runs Cyberpunk as well as an Xbox. Well sure it does, but you paid 5-6 times what that Xbox costs, so what did you actually win besides a Darwin award? If you're gonna spend big money on a Mac, you could have spent the same money on a solid Mac and a gaming PC/console and you'd have fewer issues. (Worth noting here, Macs can run Cyberpunk natively, but before CDPR ported it to ARM, Mac gamers were running the Windows version via Whisky and getting decent performance on comfortably (read: expensive) equipped Macs.)

If you just wanna play Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza, of course you can't get those on an x86-64 console to emulate.

Anyway, the problem is, you are given no legitimate options to purchase the game because the consoles have nearly doubled in price and there's no added value, it's just "fuck you, pay us or don't."

The emulators have always been in a gray area, since they can play illegal copies of games with illegally sourced bios, etc. The emulator itself is simply the tool, which on its own isn't proof of piracy much like owning a bong isn't definite proof you smoke weed... just very suggestive (it can be used for tobacco I guess?)

As for current vs retro gen piracy, they're equally illegal but obviously criminalized differently. And the ethics are obviously complex, you have people who pirate who otherwise wouldn't be able to pay, you have people who pirate for a convenient copy of something they already own, and maybe people who could pay but simply don't want to (although research has suggested this isn't a huge group). And since it's digital, there isn't a loss in the same way as actual theft.

Personally, I just like taking control of the hardware and tweaking shit. I belong mostly to the folks who download copies of things I've already "bought" (which is a licence in many cases, as they don't sell physical copies). A good example is Pokemon Scarlet, which ran like dogshit on the original hardware. I've been meaning to try it in an emulator to see if it works better, although I haven't bothered yet. Would that be considered immoral, given I own the game and several switches?

Its legal if you bought the game and dump the cartridge

Emulation doesn't just apply to games. The entire legality is based off of the fact that reverse engineering is also legal, which is how companies can replicate ideas or concepts from competitor products, or how 3rd party vendors make products compatible with other platforms.

It would be stupid to have to wait for a patent to expire before you can utilize the concept in your own product. Patent cockfighting would be a completly new level of hell, and no one would get anywhere.

Imagine having to wait 10 years before you can use 3rd party controllers for your switch because Nintendo uses a proprietary bluetooth driver. 3rd party Wiimotes wouldn't even exist.

The only ethical conundrum is the aide in piracy, but we've already seen how little that has to do with emulation due to homebrew and flashcarts.

If anything, Nintendo has a higher moral ground on ROM libraries which they can argue aides in piracy due to "bypassing" copyright protection.

I get what you are saying, I'm not discounting it whatsoever. I mean I'm an accountant, I could talk all day and night about ways to maximize and protect your profits and cash flows.

That said, Nintendo has to be the laziest company from a coding perspective. Their stuff is always the first of the current gens to get jailbroken, and then it's open season. I think we should have learned by now not to fight piracy like this either, because it's both inevitable and it's a terrible look. The smarter companies know how to use it to their advantage. They also don't always go thermonuclear on their perspective clientele. It's a rotten look. Make a product that people want to buy and they'll buy it. If you make shovelware and then price it in the AAAA tiers, I think we all know what's going to happen...

I probably wouldn't disagree that it's not exactly ethical, but given the current state of society, it's kind of at the bottom of a very large list of really really awful, unethical, shit that actually deserves my attention.