Maybe 15 years ago, but we're talking about a time when three year olds are getting iPads. Some of the biggest money-making apps are targeting kids under 10. Sony and Microsoft have also weathered any supposed hit to their reputations from kids being able to chat online through their systems, despite being in the "games" category. It's not the NES era anymore.

Apple and Google are not games companies. iPads are not game systems. They can be used as such, but they aren't though of as such. Since the adult uses them too, they hold those companies and systems to different standards. Same reason no one ever really went after PC gaming 15 years ago.

The point isn't whether they use them. The point is they exist. The conversation goes from "my kid spent $10,000 on in app purchases!!!" to "parent didn't set up parental controls and kid left alone with iPad spent $10,000 on IAP." Every single time one of those stories is run, news outlets detail the existence of parental controls for parents who didn't know. The blame is shifted to the parent almost immediately.

Not by the parents, or their collective social circles.

It would need to always be running in the background which takes resources away from an already underpowered console. That reason seems a lot more likely to me than Nintendo crippling themselves in order to buffer outrage that doesn't even exist yet and might not ever.

Just no. None of that makes sense. The switch is weaker in comparison to the other consoles, but transferring sound is a minuscule amount of cpu and bandwidth. It's nothing to a modern system. Hell the original ds had voice chat in some games.

Also, they aren't crippling themselves. It's a minor annoyance at worst.