TL;DR for those who didn't read the article- it's going to basically offer users choices of programs to have pre-installed where they can basically customize their installation experience... but it's all going to be predicated on their useless snap store. In other words, as usual the best way to experience Ubuntu is via some third-party variant.

@pnutzh4x0r they won't benefit from the red hat stuff by pushing snap.

Realistically, if I'm using a minimal install, I probably want Debian for the stability anyways. It's still too bad though, always nice to have options.

Agree it sounds like a push for users to use snap more, but at the same time the "plan" doesn't sound bad in it's entirety - depending on how they design the installer experience. I could think of preselected profiles (like office, graphics, ...) that install an (adjustable) set of applications upon install. They could be downloaded on-demand while installing the system.

No serious user really chooses Ubuntu if they want a minimal install. Best options for that would be, arch, debian, alpine, or something like lubuntu.

Brutal. It an option more distros need.