But it seems like there are other easy distros with lenient requirements that don't try to force Snaps and ads on their users.

Its not like it is the only option. There are so many better systems these days it isn't even funny. Use Linux Mint, Fedora, Pop OS or maybe even Bazzite.

Personally I'm not looking an OS that is "not so bad", the initial impression should be "this is great" :)

Ubuntu is kind of the “Windows” of the Linux world

That's also the thing, I switched to Linux because I hated using Windows, and I don't like how Microsoft operates. The last think I want is a distribution which tries to be Windows made by a company which tries to be Microsoft. It's of course an exaggeration, and Ubuntu doesn't do EEE and patent trolling as far as I know, but at least for me it feels like they're going in the wrong direction when they keep reinventing the wheel, forcing solutions that users don't want, and generally trying to create a "one size fits all" desktop. I'm not against it, Ubuntu is probably a good choice for some users, it just doesn't fit me. I used Xubuntu for many years, and I also tried both Gnome and Unity at different points, but currently I use Fedora KDE.

While the criticism may be valid, it doesn't make sense to someone new to Linux.

It's easy to switch to Ubuntu from Windows, and it's easier to switch from Ubuntu to another distro.

I have not used Ubuntu enough to say I have a bad experience with it. I know of Snap being effectively a proprietary store (a dumb feature) and Canonical has a bad reputation for being like the Microsoft of GNU+Linux.

Linux Mint offers the pros of Ubuntu but with the cons of like-Microsoft decision removed, why would I consider Ubuntu?

I use arch btw

I remember when Ubuntu was released, and I still have one of the first or second release Ubuntu shipit CDs.

Ubuntu was good at marketing and they were good at making things 'just work'.

It was often the recommended choice of starter-distro due to hardware compatibility.

I've installed and admin'ed Ubuntu on 20 PCs in a small office setting, and it provides a decent user experience.

I would not personally use Ubuntu.

My daily driver now is Trisquel GNU/Linux, which is Ubuntu with all non-free packages(and binary blobs) removed.

If you are at the stage where you know how to source hardware that works with FLOSS-drivers, try out a fully-free FSF approved distro.

https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.en.html

Clean, with zero corporate fluff.

started playing with ubuntu around version 6, been using it for various things ever since

honestly never got in the way of me doing what i wanted

Just give him LMDE

I just switched back to Linux a week ago (Ubuntu Studio 24.04) from windows. I used to use Linux 15 years ago and I tried a lot of distros at that time. Eventually I landed on Crunchbang which I loved dearly.

Since it's been awhile I wanted something fairly vanilla so Ubuntu Studio felt like a good start. I was planning on switching to something else (I hear we have Crunchbang++ now) after getting used to Linux again but I have kind of settled in to Ubuntu now. It feels a little sloppy but comfortable somehow.

The biggest similarity with Windows is that it isn't a community run project. In my opinion they tried very hard to represent themselves as an open source community in the early days and downplay Canonical's role. There is nothing wrong with Ubuntu as a first introduction to Linux but if people are looking for a project to join and make contributions there are many better options.

While I appreciate the utility of snaps and flatpaks for providing sandboxed, cross-platform apps, I've often found them slower than traditional packages. Their tendency to take up more disk space also feels inefficient, especially when system resources are sometimes precious. For these reasons, I generally prefer using apps installed directly through the system's default package manager, which tend to offer better performance and use space more efficiently....