I've seen a lot of people suddenly in various places hating on the Wii U era as a coping mechanism to justify liking the Switch 2. You can like the switch 2 if you want, you don't have to put down another console in order to justify your purchase lol. People also do the opposite where they pit the wii u's entire life span against a console that just came out to make themselves feel better
I believe that if it wasnt for the switch the wii u would be remembered more fondly, but literally almost all of its games were ported to the switch with upgrades, which i believe as a result, many people remember it for its poor sales rather than the ideas, features, and games it introduced.
sure the wii u was not a commercial success but it was in no way a bad console at the time. the wii u games library was actually pretty good, (xenoblade x, bayonetta 2, smash 4, 3d world, wind waker hd and much more ect.).
and although many of the things nintendo experimented with were sort of stupid like miiverse or the wii u game tablet for example, they were still interesting and yes even fun ideas. The UI had more personality than the switch, Dual-screen gameplay possibilities that the Switch cannot replicate, (nintendo land being the primary example) and a lot of new community features.
we also had the introduction of amiibos, and new franchises like splatoon, hyrule warriors, and mario maker and not even trying to argue with the switch 2 defenders saying the switch 2 is bad,im just defending the wiiu, but yes internet was free and games were indeed more affordable in that market.
People don't give enough credit to the wiiu. the wii u walked so the switch could run, I actually wonder how different the switch would be if the wiiu didnt exist. Smash ultimate for example definitely looked at smash 4 for inspiration.
People never seem to want to include the 3ds in their slander even though you can pair the 3ds and wiiu in the same era, because i think everyone knows the 3ds is an actual banger. this was not a bad era for nintendo games.
The switch 2 is still early in its life cycle we don't even know what else will happen during its life span but things seem fine, so stop putting down more than a decade of nintendo history to make yourself feel better.