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There is a specific UI guideline for something that can be enabled or not: it's called a tick box. The on-off switch thing is a distinctly iOS invention [1]. The funny thing is that OS X (now macOS) mostly held off using those 'switches' too, until fairly recently.

[1]: https://freeimage.host/i/CxYBW6G

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The switch widget is for settings where flipping the switch takes immediate effect, unlike a checkbox where you have to press some "OK", "Submit" or "Apply" button. In Windows 2000/Office UIs, this would've been shown as a button that could visibly switch between "pressed" and "not pressed" states, just like a push-down switch, but that was rarely used. The modern labeled switch design is a lot more intuitive than that.

> The modern labeled switch design is a lot more intuitive than that.

In a lot of the modern switches I meet with the colour choice makes it totally unclear which is on and which is off.

Ok, if it's a cookie acceptance dialog it makes sense to do dark patterns, but I've seen it in legit apps too.

DVD menus is another place where this confusion happens. Of course, any DVDs I buy these days are ripped, converted to H.265 and put on the NAS.

Whose specific UI guideline are you talking about? Android's recommends the switch component for setting toggles: https://m3.material.io/components/switch/overview

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