I genuinely have no idea. I've read online that it could be because of
- Skin oils
- Lotion
- Alcohol
- Other detergent
Skin oils seems ridiculous because I'm not oilier than your average person, and it's literally meant to be used with your fingers so if it can't handle skin oil from your fingers without breaking the fuck down that's a massive design flaw.
I basically just left it in its case for ~9 months or so, closed in the TV bench. There's no way UV reached it and broke down the plastic.
The fact that a ~€20 pack of 2 replacement switches are mechanically better, and also designed to have the caps be removable so you can replace them is criminal, given that the controllers themselves cost like €80 by default. I'm definitely not buying the Switch 2.